Investigating the relationship between self-efficacy and anxiety symptom interpretation in youth athletes
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Dylan T. Confar (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Jennifer Etnier
Abstract: Anxiety is a widely experienced phenomenon defined as a state of apprehension of potential threats (Bandura, 1988). Performance anxiety is defined as the perception of a competitive situation as threatening and leads to symptoms associated with anxiety such as feelings of apprehension and tension. In the present study, the focus is on performance anxiety, therefore, all references to anxiety should be considered the performance side of anxiety rather than the clinical side of anxiety. In sports and performance, too much anxiety leads to debilitating performance whereas there is considered to be an optimal level of anxiety that can be facilitative to performance. Previous research looking into anxiety within sports views anxiety primarily as debilitating to performance. Whereas a smaller portion of literature has studied the facilitative effects anxiety has on performance. It has been suggested that an individual viewing their performance anxiety as facilitative or debilitative can change depending on various individual factors such as experience, skill level, hardiness, and type of sport. An individual difference not mentioned in the literature that may have an impact on how an individual may perceive their anxiety is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the perception that one has the ability to execute a skill successfully in any situation. Although self-efficacy has been found to be related to regulating anxiety and improved performance, research has not been conducted to determine if there is a relationship between one's feelings of efficacy and how they interpret performance anxiety. The purpose of this study was to investigate if higher self-efficacy is correlated with interpreting performance anxiety as facilitative, and if lower self-efficacy is correlated with interpreting anxiety as debilitative. The present study recruited youth athletes from various sports to complete questionnaires regarding a recent past competition asking them to reflect on their thoughts and feelings during their performance. The CSAI-2 with a direction subscale was used to capture if the participants experienced their anxiety as facilitative during the competition. The General Self-Efficacy questionnaire was employed to measure the self-efficacy the athletes perceived during their competition as well. Correlational analyses were conducted to find if self - efficacy and anxiety interpretation are related. The results found that self-efficacy did have a positive correlation with both somatic and cognitive anxiety direction. The findings presented in this study provide preliminary insight to the potential moderating effects self-efficacy can have on anxiety and symptom interpretation of anxiety.
Investigating the relationship between self-efficacy and anxiety symptom interpretation in youth athletes
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Created on 8/1/2024
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2024
- Keywords
- Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, Sport Psychology
- Subjects
- Sports for children $x Psychological aspects
- Self-efficacy
- Anxiety