Anxiety versus Fundamental Emotions as Predictors of Perceived Functionality of Pre-Competitive Emotional States, Threat, and Challenge in Individual Sports

By Ester Cerin. 2003

111 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The objectives of this study were to examine the contribution of anxiety and fundamental emotions to perceived emotion functionality and evaluate the informational value of anxiety measures used in sport versus measures of fundamental emotions in terms of appraisal. A battery of questionnaires comprising the somatic and cognitive subscale of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), the State Anxiety Inventory, the Differential Emotions Scale-IV, a perceived functionality of emotions single item, and two items assessing challenge and threat appraisals was administered to 202 athletes competing in individual sports in the United Kingdom. They were tested on recalled pre-competitive emotions experienced before their best and worst competition ever and momentary emotions experienced one hour before an actual competition. In general, measures of fundamental emotions with clear approach or avoidance action tendencies were better predictors of emotion functionality than anxiety measures. Results also suggested that the CSAI-2 does not convey clear information about an athlete's appraisal of a competition. Measures of negative and positive fundamental emotions with clear action tendencies were better indicators of athletes' appraisal patterns. It was concluded that assessment of athletes' emotional state should not be exclusively based on anxiety measures but should encompass or be replaced with measures of emotions conveying unambiguous information about the athlete-competition relationship.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f5a428570578be3673d6dd38b86fee9d80dd5174

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In Applied Psychology

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Perceived impact of anger and anxiety on sporting performance in rugby players (2007, background): “On a parallel with the study of anxiety and self-confidence, researchers have begun to expand their interest in a wide range of emotions related to performance (Cerin, 2003; Cerin, Szabo, Hunt, & Williams, 2000; Gould, Greenleaf, & Krane, 2002; Hanin, 1993, 1997, 2000).”
Validity of the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire in sports and its links with performance satisfaction (2014, methodology): “We used single items used in previous research (Cerin, 2003; Nicholls et al., 2009, 2010), because the stress appraisal measure was not available in Spanish.”
A descriptive study of emotional process during competition: Nature, frequency, direction, duration and co-occurrence of discrete emotions (2012, background): “This strong reliance on anxiety is problematic since athletes’ emotional experiences can not be accurately described in terms of presence or lack of anxiety (Cerin, 2003; Jones & Hanton, 2001).”
A Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (2009, background): “those symptoms are likely to help performance (Cerin, 2003; Jones & Uphill, 2004).”
Positive emotion in sport performance: current status and future directions (2011, background): “In general, much more is known about the influence of negatively-valenced emotions on these subcomponents of competitive performance in sport (Cerin, 2003).”