Nicholls, Adam, Polman, Remco, Levy, Andrew R and Hulleman, Johah (2012) An explanation for the fallacy of facilitative anxiety: stress, emotions, coping, and subjective performance in sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 43 (4). pp. 273-293. ISSN 0047-0767

Abstract

In this paper we explored the relationship between perceived stress, emotions, coping, and subjective performance. Participants were 636 athletes, who completed pre-competitive measures of stress and emotions. The participants also completed a measure of coping and subjective performance after their competitive event. Perceived stress significantly and positively correlated with the negatively toned emotions anger, anxiety, and dejection, but negatively correlated with one of the positively toned emotions, happiness. The positively toned emotions happiness and excitement correlated positively with subjective performance. The strategies mental imagery and effort expenditure were positively related to subjective performance, whereas disengagement/ resignation were negatively related to performance. Anxiety correlated with excitement, and excitement correlated with subjective performance. This finding would imply that it is the presence of excitement, which may have contributed to the notion that anxiety can be reported as being facilitative to performance.

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