Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine the effects of anxiety on performance. 36 university students took part. There were two conditions designed to manipulate the level of anxiety experienced (high or low). Participants were randomly assigned to a condition. The study involved using a ‘Batak’ and pressing as many of the 8 buttons as possible in 30 seconds. Performance was assessed by the number of times the subject pressed each button correctly within 30 seconds. An independent T-test was utilised to assess whether there was a difference in performance between the low anxiety group and the high anxiety group. Multi-variate analysis of covariance (MANOVA) was additionally used to assess if there was a difference between somatic anxiety (SA), cognitive anxiety (CA) and self-confidence (SC) between the two conditions. There was no statistical significance between the two conditions nor the three measures (SA, CA AND SC). Suggesting that high levels of anxiety does not impact Batak performance.
Introduction
The past 20 years has seen an extensive amount of research been conducted on anxiety and how anxiety can impact athlete’s performances (Neil, Fletcher, Hanton & Mellalieu, 2007; Mellalieu, Hanton & Fletcher, 2009). Anxiety has been defined as an aversive, complex emotion that occurs as a result of a threat (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007). Past research has focused on the negative influences of anxiety on sports performance. Anxiety has been associated with withdrawal of sporting activities, (Scanlan, Babkes & Scanlan, 2005) diminished enjoyment level and a reduction in ability and capability in performance (Woodman & Hardy, 2001). The relationship between anxiety and performance often gains much interest, researchers over the past 30 years have being trying to formulate and clarify this relationship by creating and analysing several models and theories.
The multidimensional anxiety theory hypothesises a negative linear relationship between cognitive state anxiety and performance, and an inverted-U relationship with somatic state anxiety and performance (Balyan, Tok, Tatar, Binboga & Balyan, 2016). Martens, Vealey and Burton (1990a) suggested a positive linear relationship between SC and performance. There is coinciding research to support this previous assumption, Martin and Gill (1991) found SC to significantly improve the performance of long-distance runners, however, found no negative linear relationship between CA and performance. Despite this, there is contradicting research which found no significant relationship between SC and performance, yet a negative linear relationship between CA and performance (Gould, Petlichkoff & Weinberg, 1984). There is additional confronting research from Craft, Magyar, Becker, and Feltz (2003) who demonstrated relations with CA and SA on performance were to be quite weak. Consequently, further research needs to be completed on the multidimensional model.
Anxiety is multidimensional in two different ways, anxiety has two components: trait and state anxiety. State anxiety is a situation-specific response. Trait anxiety is innate, it is a predisposition to react and perceive environmental situations in a consistent way (Endler & Kocovski, 2001). When those individuals with high trait anxiety perceive a situation to be threatening, the individual is likely to response and act with a high level of state anxiety (Spielberger, 1971). Anxiety is also seen as multidimensional in the way it categorises its by-products. Cognitive anxiety is the mental component of anxiety caused by irrational thinking and negative appraisal of self and future (Marten, Vealey & Blurton, 1990). Whereas, somatic anxiety is commonly known as an increase in physiological arousal (Martens, Vealey & Burton, 1990). However, this arousal experienced does not necessarily mean it will lead to an increase in anxiety levels, it is determined by how the athlete interprets the arousal which decides if arousal is experienced as anxiety (Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999). Athletes are often put under pressure when in competition and research has shown anxiety to effect one’s attentional focus (Oudejans & Pijpers, 2010).
Selective attention is one’s ability to focus on relevant information whilst blocking out stimuli that can re-direct attention (Cox, 2012). Selective attention can be diminished by anxiety. Experiencing high levels of anxiety will find attention to be skewed by threatening stimuli, this can be internal (irrational thought) or external (crowd). This will results in minimal attention available for the task, therefore performance deteriorates (Behan & Wilson, 2008; Vine & Wilson, 2011).
To explain changes in attention, research has proposed the conscious processing hypothesis, which suggests that excessive self-consciousness and concerns with the mechanics of skill execution, known as choking (Mullen & Hardy, 2000), can cause athletes to consciously control previously automated tasks. This means that skill execution is interrupted, therefore, performance deteriorates (Masters, 1992).
It is important to replicate and examine once again the influence anxiety can have on performance. Successful replications of studies can vastly decrease the likelihood of inflated false positive results (Maxwell, Lau & Howard, 2015). Based on previous research it was hypothesised that those individuals present in the high anxiety condition would perform worst in the BATAK task compared to those individuals in the low anxiety condition. The aim of the study was to discover if anxiety acted as a contributing factor to how well an individual performs in sport and how it may impact performance.
Methodology
11 female and 25 male university students who were studying a sport and exercise undergraduate degree volunteered to take part in the study (mean; age: 20.78 ± 4.67). Participants were randomised into a high-anxiety or a low-anxiety group. Participants were fully informed of the risks associated with the study, informed consent forms were obtained. The study received approval from the University Research Ethics Committee.
Measures
Demographics were collected from all participants, including date of birth, number of siblings, gender and age. Sport-performance anxiety was assessed by the 27-items CSAI-2 self-report questionnaire (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump & Smith 1990b), which measured three subscales with nine items in each: somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety and self-confidence. CSAI-2 was designed to reflect possible thoughts and feelings an individual may experience before a competition (“my body feels tense”, “I feel nervous”, “I feel self-confident”). For each item, participants indicated how they typically feel based on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from not at all (1) to very much so (4). Also, for each statement, participants are asked to indicate whether the feeling is generally facilitative or debilitative based on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from very debilitative (-3) to very facilitative (3). The separate subscales were totalled, and the scores represented the level of intensity experience by the athlete for CA, SA and SC.
Procedure
The script for group A’s created a high anxiety environment by highlighting that the task was a competition, “you will represent your teams”, “don’t mess up!”. Whereas, the script for group B’s procedure created a relaxed environment, promoting the task as not being competitive.
Figure 1: Flow diagram of procedure
Data analysis
Standard statistical tests were integrated to provide calculations of means (M) and standard deviations (SD). To analyse the data an independent t-test was utilised, this was to discover if there was a difference between the two unrelated conditions (high or low anxiety). Multi-variate analysis of covariance was additionally used to assess if there was a difference between the three variables (SA, CA and SC). Once the data was entered into SPSS statistics (version 2017, IMB SPSS statistics., Armonk, NY) the data cleaning and screening procedure was initiated. The cleaning and screening procedure found there to be 4 outliners, and there was one missing data value, which was averaged out. There was normal distribution between all data values (see appendix 1).
Results
Table 1: Mean and SD of performance in both conditions
Table 2: Mean and SD of CA, SA and SC in both conditions
There was no significant difference in performance between the two conditions (high and low anxiety), t (34) = -1.40, p=0.17. There was no significant difference between the intensity of SA, CA and SC experienced in both of the conditions, F (48, 48.38) = 0.85, p = 0.72; Wilk’s Λ = 0.16, partial η2 = 0.45. The multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted to investigate if the intensity of CA, SA and SC varied in the two conditions. The test assumptions were not met.
Discussion
The current study investigated the influence of anxiety on performance, specifically Batak performance, among university students. Based on past findings, it was hypothesised that individuals in the high anxiety condition would experience higher levels of anxiety, which would then lead to a deterioration in performance (Feltz, 2007). The findings did not support the hypotheses, as there were no statistical significant differences found between performance in both conditions nor was there any difference between SA, CA and SC experienced in the high anxiety and the low anxiety condition. This suggests that anxiety does not influence performance. The findings from this study are supported by research carried out by Gould, Petlichkoff, Simons and Vevera (1987) who found no significant relationship between CA and performance in pistol shooters. However, this was thought to be due to the fact that pistol shooting requires fine neuromuscular control, so the body was quite sensitive to somatic changes. Contradicting research has found a distinct negative linear relationship between CA and performance (Gould et al., 1984; Burton, 1988).
A possible reason why there was an insignificant difference between performance in both conditions could be due to manipulation being poor. The researchers were instructed to manipulate the environment by creating a competitive environment with all focus on the overall performance which in turn would create an ego-involving climate. An ego-involving climate can increase the likelihood that the subject would experience high levels of SA and CA (White & Zellner, 1996; Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999). The manipulation may have simply not worked, leaving the participants no more anxious than normal. This could have been due to the subjects perceiving the environment as being more task-involving, which would suggest that the subjects were unlikely to experience CA and SA.
A study was carried out by Janelle, Singer and Williams (1992) looked into a stimulated motor racing task. The main findings of this study were that as anxiety levels increased, the time taken for the individual to discriminate between a relevant or irrelevant cue increased. This suggests that in this present study those individuals in the high anxiety condition would have a lower Batak performance score to those individuals in the low anxiety condition. This is because placed in a highly anxious situation would increase anxiety level which would then result in a greater time taken for individual to discriminate between irrelevant and relevant stimuli. However, this present study found there to be no difference in performance when the condition was high anxiety, suggesting that anxiety does not affect performance.
A limitation of this study is the sample size (N=36). A low sample size is associated with a low statistical power. It is the researcher’s responsibility to estimate a sample size which is capable of detecting differences in the data (Faber & Fonseca, 2014). A study with a low statistical power is less likely to find the true effect and is likely to over predict the magnitude of the true effect (Button et al., 2013).
A limitation of this study is, it is composed of all genders. With the study including males and females it cannot be generalised to the general population. It has been demonstrated that CA and SC experienced prior to a competition has greater influence on the performance of males when compared to that of females (Woodman & Hardy, 2003). However, White & Zellner (1996) found females to experience higher levels of CA and SA compared to males. These limitations make it difficult to make valid comparisons and the findings need to be taken with caution. However, there are also strengths the rigorous procedure provides research with a clear and precise set of instructions which makes replication easier. Replication is believed to be a measurement for determining the validity of the findings (Francis, 2012).
Coaches and sport psychologists will benefit from having greater knowledge of the influence of SA, CA and SC may have on performance. There are strategies that can be utilised to reduce the intensity of anxiety, for example, thought stopping is believed to prevent negative thinking and develop positive thinking instead (Hardy & Oliver, 2014). Additionally, more awareness of the importance of SC in order to maximise performance has led to individual’s performance accomplishments been highlighted, reinforcement of verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences (Weinberg & Jackson, 1990).
To conclude, there were no significant differences in performance found between the high-anxiety group and the low-anxiety group, there was also no significant difference between the three variables (SA, CA and SC). This is most probably due to method limitations making it increasingly difficult to see the true effects of the manipulation. It is recommended for future studies to be carried out in a less artificial environment and for the participants to well familiarised with the task in order to have a similar ability level across the board. It may be beneficial to utilise participants from a club and to create the task around something that those individuals would be capable and interested in doing, this would minimise the range of ability levels and would increase engagement levels.