At the state fair, you enter a couple of different contests. The first is a blueberry pie eating contest, in which the person who eats the most pies in 2 minutes wins. The second is a 100-yard dash in which you must balance an egg on a spoon with one hand and in the other hand carry a tray with 8 glasses on it, and the person who reaches the finish line first, while not spilling either the egg or the glasses, wins. Given your knowledge of the Yerkes-Dodson Law, your arousal should be for the first contest and for the second contest for optimal performance.

Given your knowledge of the Yerkes-Dodson Law, your arousal should be ___increased for the first contest and __moderated for the second contest for optimal performance.

Explanation:

According to the Yerkes-Dodson Law of Arousal, also known as Arousal Theory, an organism's performance can be improved if the organism is aroused in some manner.   This implies that a person's performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but this lasts up to a point.  When this point is exceeded, high stress is reached, and performance plummets.  The Yerkes–Dodson law of Arousal was developed in 1908 by two psychologists, Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson.