Predictors of the precompetitive anxiety response: Relative impact and prospects for anxiety regulation (original) (raw)
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A Competitive Anxiety Review: Recent Directions in Sport Psychology Research
This chapter provides a review and discussion of the recent move towards the positive aspects and consequences of competitive anxiety. Following a description of competitive stress-related terminologies, conceptual and psychometric developments are considered including the notion of directional anxiety interpretations. The commentary then focuses on the theories and models that outline the potential positive aspects of anxiety in relation to athletic performance. Applied implications and future research directions are also discussed together with a number of explicatory statements regarding the nature of the precompetitive stress experience in sport.
Iconic Research and Engineering Journals, 2020
Over decades of sports studies and sport psychology in particular, a very strong psychological construct that has serious connection to sports performance is anxiety. The performance of sports participants especially athletes could negatively be affected by anxiety before and during sports competitions if not well managed. This paper is a documentary review and evidence of the dynamics of precompetitive anxiety with emphasis on how to manage it through sociological and psychological interventions in order to enhance sports performance. The paper addresses the concept of anxiety and pre-competitive anxiety, signs and symptoms of pre-competitive anxiety, such as; fear, loss of confidence, poor concentration, indecision, sense of confusion, among others. The paper equally x-rays the sociological forces (i.e. environment, weather, size of the venue, etc.) and psychological forces (fear, low self-esteem, etc.) necessitating pre-competitive anxiety. Some of the interventions that could be made to manage pre-competitive anxiety include; building mental strength, mental imagery rehearsal, among others.
Sports Pre-Competitive Anxiety Levels among Good and Poor Performing Intercollegiate Athletes
sjesr, 2021
Pre-competitive anxiety refers to the unpleasant emotional state of individuals. It is normal for every athlete to feel nervous before a sports competition. The pre-competitive anxiety levels in the current study examined three features i.e. somatic anxiety, self-confidence, and cognitive anxiety between the sample of poor and good performing athletes. The assessment has been made by using competitive state anxiety inventory -2 (CSAI-2), which is composed of 27 items distributed in equal three subscales of pre-competitive anxiety. The sample of the study was composed of 180 performers of different sports, into groups of 90 each good and poor performer whose ages were between 16 to 27 years. Data collected has been analyzed using a T-test. A significant difference has been found in all of the components of pre-competitive anxiety i.e. cognitive anxiety, self-confidence, and somatic anxiety among good performers and poor performers.
2009
Sports give so many opportunities for growth, socialization, physical development, camaraderie, and learning but there is another side. That side is where psychopathology can exist. Psychopathology can exist in many forms for the athlete. Some examples are depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety. After 30 years of involvement in athletics as either a coach or player, one begins to wonder how psychopathology comes into being and what can be done to help alleviate it. Research has discovered that anxiety can be the fuel for both good and bad performances. Just the thought of competition can have an athlete feeling nauseated and out of breath as well as thoughts of doubt about his or her ability. This may not happen to everyone. The level and symptoms of anxiety one experiences depends on the make up of that individual. There is no one mold for determining who will perform best, it is based upon one’s interpretations and experiences of the anxiety. One athlete’s arousal may be called excitement and another’s competitive anxiety. Therefore, the question becomes how is anxiety defined. How much anxiety is too much – when does it become pathological? What specifics play a role in the creation of detrimental anxiety on performance? Is the desire to be successful or competitive producing aspects like perfectionism, approval seeking, and lack of self-efficacy? Are there external as well as internal pressures/stressors? What can be done to ease the competitive anxiety of an athlete? How can one use the anxiety to produce positive outcomes? It is the goal of this research to answer these questions and possibly more. To begin, a definition of anxiety is prudent. The definitions and theories will open doors to understanding the wind of anxiety as well as how it manifests in sports and affects performance. It is the hope that after the doors open, one may be able to recognize what to use to regulate the wind and calm the storm.
Changes in state anxiety prior to competition : sport and exercise psychology
It has been shown that competitive anxiety can negatively affect athletic performance. Psychological interventions must be used in the pre-competition period to prevent the debilitative effects of state anxiety. The aim of the present study was to investigate the temporal changes in state anxiety in the period leading up to competition. Male high school swimmers (N=62) participated in the study. A cross-sectional quantitative research design that used the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) to measure state anxiety was employed. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Baseline and precompetitive state anxiety scores were analyzed by means of the paired t-test. The results showed that there were significant differences (p < 0.000) between state anxiety scores measured at baseline (seven days before the competition) and at precompetition (one hour before competition). Again, there were significant differences between baseline and precompetit...
Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 2004
To date, no research has investigated score predictions and anxiety interpretation in high-anxious, low-anxious, defensive high-anxious and repressor individuals. This study examined Eysenck's (1997) predictions for cognitive biases on future performance expectations in all four groups. This study was conducted in an ecologically-valid sporting environment. Competitive shooters completed the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale and the Sport Anxiety Scale prior to a major competition. Percentile splits identified the four defensiveness/anxiety groups. The modified Competitive Sport Anxiety Inventory-2 was used to assess the intensity and direction of anxiety prior to competition. Participants predicted their expected shooting score. The hypothesis that repressors would interpret their anxiety as more facilitative to performance compared to low-anxious individuals was partially supported. Repressors were more optimistic in their performance prediction in contrast to defensive high-anxious performers who, in turn, were more pessimistic compared to the other two groupings. High-anxious performers, contrary to predictions, demonstrated optimism in their future performance. The findings of this study corroborate the theoretical predictions and the evidence from previous studies with sport performers. Future research should continue to investigate the influence of cognitive biases on performance predictions in sporting environments using Weinberger et al.'s classifications.
The area of competitive anxiety continues to be extensively researched with considerable attention focused on the notion of 'direction'. The purpose of this review is to demonstrate how the study of direction has advanced our understanding of the competitive anxiety response through providing an overview of the existing research, and emphasizing why sport psychologists investigated the underlying mechanisms of performers' facilitative interpretations of anxiety symptoms. Finally, we discuss how direction has been integrated into Lazarus, transactional perspective of stress, and how this may be used to inform future research into the broader area of competition stress.
A Comparison Study and Investigation on Sport Competition Attributive Anxiety among Elite Athletes
Anxiety is one of the mental disorders in human being, which can influence the performance of each person, especially while doing physical activities and sports. Anxiety is defined in two major levels: Attributive Anxiety and Conditional Anxiety. Anxiety is one of the most popular forms of excitement among athletes in sport competitions, and when it lasts for a long period it will increase the muscular tensions and reduce the level of performance. As a matter of fact, the role of anxiety in sports and competitions is noticeable and important. This survey, compare and investigate the sport competition attributive anxiety among male athletes who had taken part in national university championships (Iran) . The statistical population in this research was 252 male athletes from football, futsal , Table Tennis and Badminton disciplines. The mean age was 24 and the standard of deviation was 2.6. The instrument for evaluations was the special questionnaire of Sport Competition Attributive Anxiety Test (SCAT) developed by Renner Martins, which has 15 questions. The perceptive statistical methods for comparing the mean of sport disciplines anxiety was one way ANOVA and LSD test, and one sample T-Test was used for comparing the anxiety in individual and team event competitions. One sample Kolmogorov Smirnov (K-S) test was used for examining the symmetry of the distributions, which showed that the selected test was not significant (P>0.05) and the distribution of collected data was normal. There is a significant relation between the sport competition attributive anxiety in athletes who participate in individual sports with their ages (P<0.01, r=0.504) There is a significant differences between the sport competition attributive anxiety among the above athletes participated in sport disciplines (P<0.05, F=8.25) Anxiety in sport psychology is one of the major aspects for controlling the situation and the conditions of athlete and competition; while anxiety could be under your control and kept in a acceptable values, we would expect the better outcome and performance from the athlete. Keywords: Anxiety, Sport Competition Attributive Test (SCAT), Athlete.
EFFECT OF COMPETITION ANXIETY ON ATHLETES SPORTS PERFORMANCE: IMPLICATION FOR COACH
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of competition anxiety upon sports performance of elite athletes who took part in the "31st National Games held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KP), Pakistan. Methodology: One hundred and twenty-eight (N=128) males= 88, females= 40; Age 21.9 +/-1.5 years; Sports Experience, 8.9 +/-1.7 years) provided the required information on 15-items Sports Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT). The history of sports performance of athletes was obtained during breaks within competitive fixtures. Main Findings: The analyzed data revealed that competitive anxiety is responsible for 38% change in sports performance. Furthermore, the relationship is moderate negative identifying that an increase in competitive anxiety decreases the sports performance of athletes (r=-0.386, P=.002). Additionally, comparative analyses indicated that female athletes and athletes from individual sports showed higher levels of Competition Anxiety, while male athletes and athletes with team sport reported lower levels of Competition Anxiety (P <.005). Implications of the study: This gender impact is critical and significant showing decisive implications for the coaches and trainers. These findings were explored in light of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for designing sport psychology programs in Pakistan for athletes from various contexts. Novelty: The findings indicate that competitive trait anxiety can harm the success, and indicate that certain PL athletes can benefit from therapies that seek to decrease anxiety before and during competition.