Abstract
Competitive state anxiety is an integral feature of sports performance but despite its pervasiveness, there is still much debate concerning the measurement of the construct. Adopting a network approach that conceptualizes symptoms of a construct as paired associations, we proposed re-examining competitive state anxiety as a system of interacting components in a dataset of 485 competitive athletes from the United Kingdom. Following a process of data reduction, we estimated a network structure for 15 items from the modified Three Factor Anxiety Inventory using the graphical LASSO algorithm. We then examined network connectivity using node predictability. Exploratory graph analysis was used to detect communities in the network and bridge expected influence calculated to estimate the influence of items from one community to items in other communities. The resultant network produced a range of node predictability values. Community detection analysis derived three communities that corresponded with previous research and several nodes were identified that bridged these communities. We conclude that network analysis is a useful tool to explore the competitive state anxiety response and we discuss how the results of our analysis might inform the assessment of the construct and how this assessment might inform interventions.
Highlights
The measurement of competitive state anxiety (CSA) has been the subject of much debate in the sport psychology literature (Hardy, 1997; Mellalieu et al, 2006)
The full model includes three higher order dimensions reflected by five lower order subcomponents; cognitive anxiety, reflected by worry and self-focused attention; physiological anxiety, reflected by autonomic hyperactivity and somatic tension and the regulatory dimension consisting of a single subcomponent, perceived control
The aim of this study is to extend the use of network modeling techniques to the construct of CSA as represented by Jones et al.’s (2019) adaptation of the Three Factor Anxiety Inventory (TFAI) in a sample of athletes competing in a range of sports
Summary
The measurement of competitive state anxiety (CSA) has been the subject of much debate in the sport psychology literature (Hardy, 1997; Mellalieu et al, 2006). The full model includes three higher order dimensions reflected by five lower order subcomponents; cognitive anxiety, reflected by worry and self-focused attention; physiological anxiety, reflected by autonomic hyperactivity and somatic tension and the regulatory dimension consisting of a single subcomponent, perceived control. To measure their model Cheng et al developed the Three Factor Anxiety Inventory (TFAI). Further support for the predictive validity of the model was established in subsequent research (Cheng et al, 2011; Cheng and Hardy, 2016) In both studies, the regulatory dimension played a key role in the dynamics of the anxiety response
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