Anxiety In Sports Performance

3429 Words14 Pages
Is the multi-dimensional theory the most effective concept when representing the relationship between anxiety and sports performance? INTRODUCTION For many years now, the importance of anxiety and its relationship with sports performance has been recognized (e.g., Kroll, 1970; Martens, 1971, 1975, Singer 1975). More than any other single emotion, anxiety has been the focus of the vast majority of research on emotion and social cognition in sports performance (Gould et al. 2002). Having experienced the effects of anxiety in my own competitive sport, cricket; I was compelled to understand more about this topic. Many questions have been raised regarding the anxiety-performance relationship in sports; “Is it facilitative or debilitative, what causes choking (Becker, Craft, Feltz, and Magyar, 2003), why do some athletes rise to occasion, while others buckle in tense situations”. These questions have sparked a lot of research in the past two decades (Apitzch, 1983) and many theories and models have been constructed. The Inverted-U theory hypothesis (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908) was the first concept formed and was used as a starting point for many other theories to build upon. This essay will look to evaluate the varying theories and the literature research behind the anxiety and sports performance relationship. One of the most broadly accepted theories is the “Multi-dimensional theory” (Martens, et al., 1990). This will be my essays prime focus. I will review and evaluate this