Selective Antecedents of Competitive State Anxiety Dimensions During High Stakes in Elite Competition

Hagan Junior John Elvis

doi:10.11648/j.ajss.20180603.14

Abstract

This present study investigated the influence of competitive state anxiety antecedents on the intensity, direction, and frequency dimensions of elite athletes during high stakes in table tennis competition. Thirty-three (N= 33) purposively sampled elite table tennis players from Ghana completed the modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2, incorporating the direction and frequency of intrusion subscales during breaks within competitive matches. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses on intensity dimension revealed that cognitive anxiety was significantly predicted by only the age factor while no predictors emerged for somatic anxiety. Self-confidence was significantly predicted by only competitive experience. For directional dimension, gender and age emerged as significant predictors of cognitive anxiety. However, none of the factors were found to significantly predict somatic anxiety and self-confidence. Regarding frequency dimension, cognitive anxiety was significantly related to competitive experience and age whereas no predictors emerged for somatic anxiety. Competitive experience factor was also significantly associated with self-confidence. Findings underscore the need to measure these anxiety dimensions concurrently because they are triggered by different antecedents. Psychological skills interventions should be idiosyncratic based, targeting more self-confidence management strategies in alleviating the effect of cognitive anxiety during competitive matches when demands are very high.

Highlights

Competitive anxiety forms an integral aspect of sport for many athletes, with a commonly held belief that attaining and sustaining an appropriate emotional state prior to and during performance is central to success or decline in performance [1,2,3]
These multidimensional anxiety studies suggest that different dimensions of competitive anxiety tend to be influenced by gender, type of sport, skill level, and competitive experience [6, 10,11,12,13,14]
Given that in high achievement sport, the individualoriented approach, together with the content of emotional experiences are often critical toward success or failure as well as personal satisfaction, it is surprising about the paucity of empirical evidence accounting for the predictive ability of personal and situational related factors on multidimensional competitive anxiety dimensions, especially during high stakes of elite competitive matches

Summary

Introduction

Competitive anxiety forms an integral aspect of sport for many athletes, with a commonly held belief that attaining and sustaining an appropriate emotional state prior to and during performance is central to success or decline in performance [1,2,3]. Gaining further insights into performance variables that may elicit anxiety symptoms of athletes will aid conceptual understanding, but may enhance in the development of effective design and implementation of appropriate psychological interventions [20,21,22]. In spite of this growing body of literature about the dimensions of multidimensional anxiety, there still remains a dearth of

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