Abstract

The present study examined how the level of trait anxiety, which is a personality characteristic, influences state anxiety and penalty shoot-out performance under pressure by instruction. The high and low trait anxiety groups were selected by using Spielberger's Trait Anxiety Scale, with trait anxiety scores, and control and pressure conditions manipulated by instructions. The participants were two groups of eight university male soccer players. They individually performed 20 shots from the penalty shoot-out point, aiming at the top right and top left corner areas in the soccer goal. Each condition had 10 trials in a within-subject design. The dependent measures comprised the number of successful goals and the state anxiety scores under each instructional condition. The result showed a significant main effect of instruction. State anxiety scores increased more and the number of successful goals decreased more in high trait anxiety groups than in low trait anxiety groups under pressure instructional condition. These findings suggest that players with higher trait anxiety scores tend to experience increased state anxiety under a pressure-laden condition, and higher state anxiety interferes with goal performance.

Highlights

  • The penalty shoot-out is used to break tied games in soccer tournaments

  • A number of research studies have investigated the relationships between trait anxiety, state anxiety, and performance with a consistent result that anxiety induced by the pressure for success influences performance positively or negatively

  • Our results showed that competitive situation by the instruction, that is, the pressure for success, increased the anxiety level and produced a deterioration of goal performance. These results support our hypotheses (1) and (2), and they are consistent with those of previous studies [5,6,19,21,22,23]. Performance of both high and low trait anxiety groups deteriorated under the pressure-laden instruction, all participants in the present study had played soccer for over 10 years and were top level players among Japanese university soccer players

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Summary

Introduction

The penalty shoot-out is used to break tied games in soccer tournaments It is a one-to-one challenge between a goalkeeper and the penalty-taker. Even world-famous and exceptionally skilled soccer players have failed in penalty shootouts during international matches such as the World Cup, the penalty shoot-out is a special situation for soccer players [1,2,3,4]. Psychological loads such as stress and tension affect the outcome of penalty kicks [1]. In a study that examined the effect of goalkeeper, goalkeeper distracted players’ gaze behavior, and reduced their shooting accuracy [5,6]

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