Female intercollegiate athletes' trait-anxiety level and performance in a game.

Abstract

The mental and emotional state of an athlete just prior to competition is of prime concern to those interested in maximizing athletic performance. This holds for the interactive effect of anxiety level and motor performance which is characterized by an inverted-U function. While anxiety level may influence motor performance ( 6 , 7 ) , quan'tification in contest conditions is limited. Moderately trait-anxious subjects perform better than subjects high or low in trait anxiety on motor tasks under varying levels of stress (1, 2 ) , but later work gave somewhat different results. In an examination of Little League baseball players utilizing perceived situation (game) criticalness, a positive linear relationship was found (5 ) , but none between arousal as measured by the criticalness of a situation and performance in men's intercollegiate basketball games ( 3 ) . In contrast, female basketball players had higher state-anxiety scores prior to crucial games than ones thought to be easy (4 ) . In the present study pre-competition trait-anxiety level was correlated with athletic performance for four different female intercollegiate varsity sport teams (badminton, basketball, softball, track). On a local rating scale coaches standardized their assessments of the performance of their players (N = 30). Pre-competition trait-anxiety levels and performance ratings were recorded over the course of each sport's season at events varying in importance. No relationship was obtained between trait-anxiety level and performance as rated by the coaches ( r = .15, .06, .03). A 2 X 3 analysis of variance for repeated measures for high and low trait-anxious subjects over three conditions of importance of a contest showed the pre-competition trait-anxiery level did not vary with the perceived importance of the athletic contest (Palre = 0.45, p > .05). This lack of relationship between players' anxiety level and the coaches' assessment of performance in a game suggests that the coaches' ratings may not give a reliable assessment of performance because pre-competition anxiety levels were consistent with the perceived importance of each contest.