How self-reflection and resilience can affect pre-competition anxiety? Evidence from national competitive table tennis in adolescent players

Lin Wang

doi:10.1007/s12144-021-02473-1

Abstract

Although previous studies have investigated pre-competition anxiety (PCA), the research examining how to promote the development of self-reflection and resilience in order to regulate PCA is limited. This study has three aims: to examine group differences age, gender, sport level, and exercise duration in (PCA), self-reflection and resilience; to test the relationships between PCA, self-reflection, and resilience; and to determine whether self-reflection and resilience can predict PCA. The included 82 male and 105 female adolescent Chinese table tennis player (ages 12–19). SPSS 25.0 software has used to drive ANOVA, Pearson correlations and regression analysis. The main result was that Pearson correlations demonstrated the strongest relationship between PCA, self-reflection, and resilience. The regression analysis model proved that self-insight predicted cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence; interpersonal assistance and emotional control predicted self-confidence; and emotional control predicted cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety. The result of this study were consistent with those of previous studies: there was a significant relationship between PCA, self-reflection and resilience when using the Chinese Adolescent Resilience Scale, and there were some differences in the test of group differences. However, this study uncovered new evidence that interpersonal assistance and emotional control can predict PCA. Further research should focus on cross-cultural differences in the process of cultivating athlete self-reflection and resilience.

Highlights

Competitive anxiety, as a common emotion of athletes, has always been a topic of concern in sports science research (Correia & Rosado, 2019; Rice et al, 2019; Sniras & Uspuriene, 2018)
This study investigated the application of psychological questionnaires to measure the pre-competition anxiety (PCA), self-reflection and resilience of younger in the national youth table tennis competition to explain how self-reflection and resilience affect PCA
The study’s main finding was that there is a significant relationship between PCA, self-reflection and resilience

Summary

Introduction

Competitive anxiety, as a common emotion of athletes, has always been a topic of concern in sports science research (Correia & Rosado, 2019; Rice et al, 2019; Sniras & Uspuriene, 2018). Anxiety leads to attention problems in competitive games (Pena & Losada, 2017; Pijpers et al, 2005). Many researchers have discussed the significant relationship between emotion and cognition (Doron & Martinent, 2017; Martinent & Ferrand, 2007; Smith et al, 1988), as cognitive development can regulate competitive anxiety (Gomes, 2017). Processing efficiency theory states that anxiety creates high cognitive demands, appropriating the resources of the working memory, leading to impaired performance. Previous research supports the experimental evidence (Donachie et al, 2018a; Doron & Martinent, 2017). Doron and Martinent (2017) proposed that appraisal can affect anxiety based on the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion because appraisal plays an important role in the anxiety state. When evaluating the significance of an event in relation to the person, individuals’ coping strategies can

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