Anxiety-performance Relationship Research Articles

Mindfulness, reinvestment, and rowing under pressure: Evidence for moderated moderation of the anxiety-performance relationship

ObjectivesOur study had two objectives. First, we examined the relationship between dispositional sport-specific mindfulness and rowing performance. Second, we investigated whether dispositional sport-specific mindfulness moderated the moderating effect of conscious processing on the anxiety-performance relationship. DesignCross-sectional field study. Participants took part in a competitive race and completed a survey after the race. MethodRowers (N = 270) completed post-race measures of mindfulness, rowing specific reinvestment, perceived performance, anxiety and demographics. We also determined actual rowing performance. ResultsMindful refocus was positively associated with perceived and actual performance, whilst non-judgemental thinking was only positively associated with perceived performance. Rowing specific Conscious Motor Processing (RS-CMP) moderation effect on the anxiety-performance relationship was attenuated by high levels mindful awareness, this was true for both actual and perceived performance. Rowing specific movement self-consciousness (RS-MSC) moderation effect on the anxiety-performance relationship was moderated by non-judgmental thinking but only for perceived performance. ConclusionOur findings provide initial support that dispositional mindfulness may benefit performance under pressure and that this may be through the attenuation of reinvestment processes. Furthermore, the result demonstrated that mindful awareness and non-judgmental thinking may act on distinct reinvestment processes.

Math self-efficacy, not emotional self-efficacy, mediates the math anxiety-performance relationship in undergraduate students

A clear inverse relationship exists between efficacy and anxiety and anxiety and performance in mathematics. However, efficacy is domain- and task-specific, so the role that specific types of efficacy play in the anxiety-performance relationship is less clear. Emotional self-efficacy moderates this relationship in children, but research has not yet examined its role with math anxiety and performance in undergraduate students who have more developed emotional regulation. Further, understanding the role of self-efficacy for different tasks (i.e., efficacy for math versus for emotion regulation) is important to understanding math anxiety and how to intervene for math anxious individuals. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to explore the moderating and/or mediating role of both math self-efficacy and emotional self-efficacy in undergraduate students using indirect effects analyses. One hundred and fifteen students at a mid-sized state university in the Midwest United States completed self-report measures of emotional self-efficacy, math self-efficacy, and math anxiety before completing a standardized measure of math performance. Results of indirect effects analyses determined that math self-efficacy had an indirect effect on the anxiety-performance relationship while emotional self-efficacy had neither indirect nor moderating effects on the math anxiety-performance relationship.

Creative Flexibility Performance Is Neither Related to Anxiety, Nor to Self-Control Strength, Nor to Their Interaction.

Previous research has reliably found that self-control strength moderates the anxiety-performance relationship for cognitive and perceptual-motor tasks that involve executive functioning. In the present preregistered experiment (N = 200; https://aspredicted.org/a775h.pdf), we investigated whether the interaction of anxiety and self-control also predicts creative flexibility performance. According to the Attentional Control Theory, anxiety can impair executive functioning. In the case that creative flexibility relies on executive functions, anxiety should therefore interfere with creative flexibility performance. However, self-control strength has been demonstrated to serve as a buffer against the negative effects of anxiety on executive functioning. Therefore, we assumed that there will be a negative relationship between anxiety and creative flexibility performance, and that this negative relationship would be more pronounced for participants who are low compared to high in momentary self-control strength. Analogous to the previous studies, we manipulated the participants’ self-control strength (ego depletion vs. no depletion) and subsequently induced a potentially threatening test situation. The participants then completed a measure of their state anxiety and a standardized test of creative flexibility. Contrary to our expectation, self-control strength, state anxiety, and their interaction did not predict creative flexibility performance. Complementary Bayesian hypothesis testing revealed strong support for the null hypothesis. Therefore, we conclude that, at least under certain conditions, creative flexibility performance may be unrelated to resource-dependent executive functions.

An Examination of Ironic Effects in Air-Pistol Shooting under Pressure.

This study aimed to test the incidence of ironic performance errors in elite air-pistol shooters. Previous research has revealed that, when shooters are anxious, avoidant instructions can cause ironic performance breakdown, especially in the unintended direction. Fifty-seven experienced air-pistol shooters were given specific instructions not to shoot to a certain part of a target, under low- and high-anxiety conditions, respectively. Results demonstrated that, when instructed not to shoot in a specific direction, anxious shooters did so a significant number of times. Interestingly, there was no difference in non-target non-ironic error, which provides specific support for Wegner’s theory of ironic processes of mental control in air-pistol shooting. Consequently, these findings illustrated that the combination of increased anxiety with avoidant instructions could lead to such unintended performance errors, called ironic error. Thus, understanding the mechanism of the anxiety-performance relationship may be a useful theoretical framework which could provide practical, instruction-based interventions to reduce susceptibility to ironic errors under pressure.

Distinct effects of cognitive versus somatic anxiety on cognitive performance in old age: the role of working memory capacity

Objective: The adverse effects of anxiety on cognition are widely recognized. According to Attentional Control Theory, worry (i.e. facet of cognitive anxiety) is the component that is responsible for these effects, and working memory capacity (WMC) plays an important role in regulating them. Despite the increasing importance of this problem with aging, little is known about how these mechanisms interact in old age. In this study, we explored the distinct contributions of the somatic and cognitive components of anxiety to neuropsychological performance, and the potential moderating role of WMC.Method: We administered cognitive tasks testing processing speed, cognitive flexibility and working memory to 605 older adults, who also underwent depression and test anxiety assessments (data from VLV study).Results: Multiple regression analyses showed that cognitive (but not somatic) aspects of anxiety affected cognitive flexibility. The effect of cognitive anxiety on processing speed was moderated by WMC: the anxiety-performance association was lower for participants with greater WMC.Conclusion: Results confirmed the specific role of worry in the anxiety–performance relationship in old age and supported the hypothesis that working memory resources regulates its deleterious effect on cognition. The absence of a moderation effect in the more costly switching task may reflect a limitation of resources with aging.

A Test and Extension of Lane and Terry's (2000) Conceptual Model of Mood-Performance Relationships Using a Large Internet Sample.

The present study tested and extended Lane and Terry (2000) conceptual model of mood-performance relationships using a large dataset from an online experiment. Methodological and theoretical advances included testing a more balanced model of pleasant and unpleasant emotions, and evaluating relationships among emotion regulation traits, states and beliefs, psychological skills use, perceptions of performance, mental preparation, and effort exerted during competition. Participants (N = 73,588) completed measures of trait emotion regulation, emotion regulation beliefs, regulation efficacy, use of psychological skills, and rated their anger, anxiety, dejection, excitement, energy, and happiness before completing a competitive concentration task. Post-competition, participants completed measures of effort exerted, beliefs about the quality of mental preparation, and subjective performance. Results showed that dejection associated with worse performance with the no-dejection group performing 3.2% better. Dejection associated with higher anxiety and anger scores and lower energy, excitement, and happiness scores. The proposed moderating effect of dejection was supported for the anxiety-performance relationship but not the anger-performance relationship. In the no-dejection group, participants who reported moderate or high anxiety outperformed those reporting low anxiety by about 1.6%. Overall, results showed partial support for Lane and Terry’s model. In terms of extending the model, results showed dejection associated with greater use of suppression, less frequent use of re-appraisal and psychological skills, lower emotion regulation beliefs, and lower emotion regulation efficacy. Further, dejection associated with greater effort during performance, beliefs that pre-competition emotions did not assist goal achievement, and low subjective performance. Future research is required to investigate the role of intense emotions in emotion regulation and performance.

Worry Activation Impairs Intelligence Test Performance Only Under Ego Depletion

Abstract. The detrimental effects of anxiety on cognitive performance have been explained by the activation of worry, which detracts attention away from the task at hand. However, recent research showed that anxiety is related to performance only when self-control capacity is low (i.e., ego depletion). The present work extends these findings by showing that activation of worry interferes with cognitive performance more strongly when self-control capacity is momentarily depleted as compared to intact. After manipulations of self-control capacity and worry activation, 70 undergraduates completed a standardized intelligence test. As expected, activation of worry was associated with poorer performance when self-control capacity was depleted, but had no effect on performance when self-control capacity was intact. The findings indicate that worry may play a causal role in the anxiety–performance relationship, but only when its regulation by self-control is momentarily hindered.

Reexamining the relationship between test anxiety and learning achievement: An individual-differences perspective

Previous studies have indicated that there is a negative correlation between test anxiety and performance. However, how the type of anxiety/stress, the examinees’ personal characteristics, and the method of assessment affect this relationship remained uninvestigated. Thus, the present study examined the relationship between test anxiety and learning achievement among secondary-school students, as well as tested two anxiety-performance relationship models. The analysis of test-anxiety scores and the standardized entrance examination scores of 1931 Taiwanese ninth-graders revealed an overall coefficient of 0.18 for the correlation between anxiety and achievement. Students in the lower-achievement group (i.e., ranked from percentile 1 to percentile 50, PR1–50) exhibited a positive correlation between anxiety and achievement (r = 0.22), which is consistent with the motivational enhancement model, whereas students in the higher-achievement group (PR51–99) exhibited a negative correlation (r = −0.16), which corresponds to the cognitive interference model. This study also found that although girls report experiencing higher test anxiety than boys, the correlations between test anxiety and achievement are the same among boys and girls. Because both the motivational enhancement and cognitive interference models could not completely explain the results, we proposed a “stress-of-uncertainty” model to explain the inverted-U shape of the anxiety for students.

The fourth dimension: A motoric perspective on the anxiety–performance relationship

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on raising concern that anxiety–performance relationship theory has insufficiently catered for motoric issues during, primarily, closed and self-paced skill execution (e.g., long jump and javelin throw). Following a review of current theory, we address the under-consideration of motoric issues by extending the three-dimensional model put forward by Cheng, Hardy, and Markland (2009) (‘Toward a three-dimensional conceptualization of performance anxiety: Rationale and initial measurement development, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 271–278). This fourth dimension, termed skill establishment, comprises the level and consistency of movement automaticity together with a performer's confidence in this specific process, as providing a degree of robustness against negative anxiety effects. To exemplify this motoric influence, we then offer insight regarding current theories’ misrepresentation that a self-focus of attention toward an already well-learned skill always leads to a negative performance effect. In doing so, we draw upon applied literature to distinguish between positive and negative self-foci and suggest that on what and how a performer directs their attention is crucial to the interaction with skill establishment and, therefore, performance. Finally, implications for skill acquisition research are provided. Accordingly, we suggest a positive potential flow from applied/translational to fundamental/theory-generating research in sport which can serve to freshen and usefully redirect investigation into this long-considered but still insufficiently understood concept.

Integrating attentional control theory and the strength model of self-control.

In the present article, we argue that it may be fruitful to incorporate the ideas of the strength model of self-control into the core assumptions of the well-established attentional control theory (ACT). In ACT, it is assumed that anxiety automatically leads to attention disruption and increased distractibility, which may impair subsequent cognitive or perceptual-motor performance, but only if individuals do not have the ability to counteract this attention disruption. However, ACT does not clarify which process determines whether one can volitionally regulate attention despite experiencing high levels of anxiety. In terms of the strength model of self-control, attention regulation can be viewed as a self-control act depending on the momentary availability of self-control strength. We review literature that has revealed that self-control strength moderates the anxiety–performance relationship, discuss how to integrate these two theoretical models, and offer practical recommendations of how to counteract negative anxiety effects.

COMPARISON OF SPORT COMPETITIVE ANXIETY LEVELS OF SAUDI ARABIAN NATIONAL TEAM ATHLETES WITH AND WITHOUT DISABILITIES IN COMPETITIONS

ObjectiveThe purpose of the present study is to compare the individual differences in the levels of somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption of Saudi Arabian national team with and without...

Is Choking under Pressure a Consequence of Skill-Focus or Increased Distractibility? Results from a Tennis Serve Task

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that athletes often choke in high pressure situations because anxiety can affect attention regulation and in turn performance. There are two competing theoretical approaches to explain the negative anxiety-performance relationship. According to skillfocus theories, anxious athletes’ attention is directed at how to execute the sport-specific movements which interrupts execution of already automatized movements in expert performers. According to distraction theories, anxious athletes are distractible and focus less on the relevant stimuli. We tested these competing assumptions in a between-subject design, as semi-professional tennis players were either assigned to an anxiety group (n = 25) or a neutral group (n = 28), and performed a series of second tennis serves into predefined target areas. As expected, anxiety was negatively related to serve accuracy. However, mediation analyses with the bootstrapping method revealed that this relationship was fully mediated by self-reported distraction and not by skill-focus.

The role of expressive writing in math anxiety.

Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction to situations involving math. Previous work demonstrates that math anxiety can negatively impact math problem solving by creating performance-related worries that disrupt the working memory needed for the task at hand. By leveraging knowledge about the mechanism underlying the math anxiety-performance relationship, we tested the effectiveness of a short expressive writing intervention that has been shown to reduce intrusive thoughts and improve working memory availability. Students (N = 80) varying in math anxiety were asked to sit quietly (control group) prior to completing difficulty-matched math and word problems or to write about their thoughts and feelings regarding the exam they were about to take (expressive writing group). For the control group, high math-anxious individuals (HMAs) performed significantly worse on the math problems than low math-anxious students (LMAs). In the expressive writing group, however, this difference in math performance across HMAs and LMAs was significantly reduced. Among HMAs, the use of words related to anxiety, cause, and insight in their writing was positively related to math performance. Expressive writing boosts the performance of anxious students in math-testing situations.

Processing Efficiency Theory to Attentional Control Theory: New Perspective for Anxiety-performance Relationship in Sport Psychology

Processing Efficiency Theory to Attentional Control Theory: New Perspective for Anxiety-performance Relationship in Sport Psychology

Building self-confidence in athletes

Although we hear athletes and exercisers talk about confidence all the time, it is not an easy term to define precisely. Sports psychologists define self-confidence as the belief that you can successfully perform a desired behavior.Vealy (1986) originally viewed self confidence as both a disposition and a state. Vealey (2001) had seen sport self confidence as a social cognitive construct that can be more trait like or more state like, depending on the temporal frame of reference used. Confidence might be something you feel today and there fore be unstable (statelike), or it may be part of your personality and thus be very stable (trait like). Most importantly confident athletes believe in their ability to acquire the necessary skills and competencies, both physical and mental, to reach their potential. Less confident players doubt whether they are good enough or have what it takes to be successful.It is important to make final comment about defining self confidence. Specifically, some evolving and recent research (Vealey & Knight, 2002) has revealed that like many other current personality constructs, self confidence may be multidimensional, consisting of several aspects (e.g., confidence about one's ability to execute physical skills)Research, indicating that the factor most consistently distinguishing highly successful from less successful athletes is confidence (Jones & Hardly, 1990; Vealy, 1999). Gould et al. (1999) found that confidence was among the chief factors influencing performance at the Nagano Olympic games. Cox (1998) stated that successful sports experiences develop self confidence and motivation to achieve success. This shows that successful performances correlate with self confidence. Edwards and Hardly (1996) have conducted a series of investigations to explore the potential influence of directional perceptions of anxiety on the anxiety performance relationship. This study revealed that cognitive anxiety can have a facilitative effect upon performance. Research has indicated that self confidence is an important predictor of performance that is at least partially independent of cognitive anxiety (Edwards & Hardly 1996).Geoige (1994) stated that over the past three decades, the construct of self confidence has received a lot of attention from sport science researchers. Self confidence is one of the most frequently cited psychological factors thought to affect athletic performance and it has also has been called the most critical factors in sport (George, 1994).We have found that self confident athletes use psychological skills such as mastering fear, goal setting and more often than their less self confident athletes. Self confident athletes are mentally tough and also they find that exercise challengeable and enjoyable. Self confident can be developed through intervention packages. What follows is a five stage approach to implement strategies that athletes can use to enhance their self confident.Step 1 : Identify your biggestfearsThe first step in building confidence is to identify that which is holding athletes back from being the athletes want to be. If athletes haven't experienced the success they desire, it is most likely because athletes have fears that are holding them back. Some common fears that get in the way of success include:* Fear of failure: Ironically enough, the more athletes fear failure, the more they will fail. Athletes who get to the top of their sports learn to overcome this issue early in their careers. They learn that being scared of failing equates to competing passively (due to fear of taking risks that might fail), and they know that no athlete can become better in his or her sport when competing in a passive manner.* Fear of success: This, too, is a common fear that precludes athletes from becoming champions. Some athletes actually focus on the negatives (in their minds) that will coincide with their future successincreased responsibility, increased exposure, increased expectations. …

Role of self-control strength in the relation between anxiety and cognitive performance.

In the present work, we examine the role of self-control resources within the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance. We argue that self-control is required for keeping attention away from anxiety-related worries, which would otherwise distract a person from performing on the test. In Study 1 (N = 67) and Study 2 (N = 96), we found that state anxiety was negatively related to performance of verbal learning and mental arithmetic if participants' self-control resources were depleted, but it was unrelated if participants' self-control was intact. In Study 3 (N = 99), the worry component of trait test anxiety was more strongly related to perceived distraction by worries while performing an arithmetic task for participants with depleted self-control resources than for nondepleted participants. Furthermore, distraction by worries showed to be responsible for suboptimal performance. The findings may help to clarify the anxiety-performance relationship and offer a novel approach for counteracting performance decrements associated with test anxiety.

Effects of State Anxiety on Music Performance: Relationship between the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Subscales and Piano Performance

This study investigated the relationship between the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2R, Cox, Martens, & Russell, 2003; Jones & Swain, 1992; Martens, Vealey, & Burton, 1990) subscales and the quality of music performance to compare the anxiety-performance relationship in pianists with that in athletes and to gain insights into the effective coping strategies for music performance anxiety (MPA). Fifty one students (15 women and 36 men) aged 18–26 years ( M = 20.6, SD = 2.3) completed the CSAI-2R just prior to their individual piano performances in a concert, followed by the self-evaluation of performance quality. The CSAI-2R demonstrated adequate psychometric properties when applied to MPA. Consistent with the previous findings in sport psychology, correlation analyses and multiple regression analyses showed that self-confidence intensity positively predicted global performance ( p < .001). Cognitive anxiety intensity negatively predicted technical accuracy ( p < .05), while cognitive anxiety direction positively predicted global performance ( p < .05). On the other hand, the correlation between somatic anxiety and performance was non-significant. We conclude that acquiring self-confidence, reducing pre-performance cognitive anxiety, and interpreting the symptoms of cognitive anxiety as being facilitative to the subsequent performance will improve performance quality. Based on the present findings, the effectiveness of mental skills training for athletes and some educational methods in treating MPA is discussed.

From processing efficiency to attentional control: a mechanistic account of the anxiety–performance relationship

The aim of this paper is to outline the development of Eysenck and Calvo's (1992) processing efficiency theory (PET) and to summarise research testing its predictions in the sporting domain. PET provides a mechanistic explanation for how anxiety may influence performance through its impact on attentional resources. The central tenet of PET is that as well as pre-empting resources in working memory, increased anxiety provides a motivational function, leading to the allocation of additional effort to attempt to maintain task performance. Research in sport settings has been supportive of the predictions of PET, adopting a range of measures of processing efficiency; including self-reported effort, secondary task performance and psychophysiological indices. Furthermore, cognitive sport psychologists have recently examined direct influences of anxiety on the efficiency of information processing via gaze behaviour analyses. These findings are particularly relevant in the light of a recent update and development of PET; attentional control theory (ACT; Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007). ACT purports that anxiety reduces attentional control by increasing the influence of the stimulus-driven attentional system at the cost of goal directed control. It is evident that ACT may provide a useful framework for examining the relationship between anxiety, attention and performance in sport skills.

Toward a three-dimensional conceptualization of performance anxiety: Rationale and initial measurement development

Objectives An integrated three-dimensional model of performance anxiety was constructed to offer an alternative conceptualization that may contribute to understanding of the complex anxiety–performance relationship. In particular, the adaptive potential (producing positive effects) of anxiety was acknowledged explicitly by including a regulatory dimension. This model is characterized by five subcomponents, with worry and self-focused attention representing cognitive anxiety, autonomous hyperactivity and somatic tension representing physiological anxiety, and perceived control representing the regulatory dimension of anxiety. The overview of the conceptual framework and the underlying rationale are presented. Design As a necessary first step towards model testing, an initial measure was developed and the factorial validity of the model was investigated. Method Confirmatory factor analysis was used in two independent samples ( N = 286, 327) in a wide context of sports performance. Results A 25-item measure of performance anxiety was established. Findings of CFA revealed support for a three-dimensional first-order model. Conclusions Although the present model of performance anxiety was best presented as a three-dimensional first-order structure, the integrity of the conceptual framework is considered intact as such a factor structure distinctly reflects the three major processes (i.e., cognitive, physiological and regulatory) that are proposed to be activated in the anxiety dynamics from a broad cognitive perspective.

Choking under pressure in sensorimotor skills: Conscious processing or depleted attentional resources?

Objectives This study examined and compared the conscious processing hypothesis and the attentional threshold hypothesis as explanations for choking under pressure. Design A 2×3 (anxiety level × putting condition) within group design was employed. Methods Twenty experienced golfers with handicaps ranging from 0 to 12 putted using three explicit knowledge cues, three task-irrelevant knowledge cues, and a single swing thought cue under low and high anxiety to test these opposing hypotheses. Results Irrespective of anxiety the data revealed that putting performance was generally better in the swing thought condition requiring the mobilisation of less cognitive resources. Under increased cognitive anxiety putting performance deteriorated in the explicit knowledge condition, whereas performance did not deteriorate in the task-irrelevant and swing thought conditions, providing support for the conscious processing hypothesis. Conclusions These results suggest that the type and/or amount of conscious processing may influence the anxiety–performance relationship. Future research should combine qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a more complete understanding of this relationship.