Relationship between Anxiety, Self-Confidence, and Evaluation of Coaching Behaviors

Abstract

Two experiments examined Smoll and Smith’s (1989) model of leadership behaviors in sport. The coaching behaviors of a male head coach of a collegiate women’s basketball team (n=11 players) were examined. The data supported competitive trait anxiety as an individual-difference variable that mediates athletes’ perception and evaluation of coaching behaviors. There also was support for adding athletes’ state cognitive anxiety, state self-confidence, and perception of the coach’s cognitive anxiety to the model as individual-difference variables. Athletes who scored high in trait anxiety (p<.001) and state cognitive anxiety (p<.05) and low in state self-confidence (p<.05), and athletes who perceived the coach as high in state cognitive anxiety (p<.001), evaluated coaching behavior more negatively. Game outcome may influence the effect of self-confidence in mediating athletes’ perception and evaluation of coaching behaviors. Additionally, athletes perceived several specific coaching behaviors more negatively than did the coach, and athletes drastically overestimated their coach’s self-reported pregame cognitive and somatic anxiety and underestimated his self-confidence. Overall, the results suggest that coaches should be more supportive and less negative with high anxious and low self-confident athletes.