title: Anxiety symptom interpretation in high-anxious, defensive high-anxious, low-anxious and repressor sport performers.
abstract: For the first time in a sport setting this study examined the intensity and direction of the competitive state anxiety response in collegiate athletes as a function of four different coping styles: high-anxious, defensive high-anxious, low-anxious and repressors. Specifically, the study predicted that repressors would interpret competitive state anxiety symptoms as more facilitative compared to high-anxious, defensive high-anxious, and low-anxious performers. Separate Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) were performed on the intensity and direction subscales of the modified Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). A significant main effect was identified for trait worry revealing that low trait anxious athletes reported lower intensities of cognitive and somatic anxiety and higher self-confidence and interpreted these as more facilitative than high trait anxious athletes. The prediction that performers with a repressive coping style would interpret state anxiety symptoms as more facilitative than performers with non-repressive coping styles was not supported.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, University of Glamorgan Pontypridd, UK. rhmullen@glam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mullen
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lane
authors.forename: Sheldon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hanton
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D013177:Sports / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult