Anxiety, ego depletion, and sports performance

Englert, Christoph; Bertrams, Alex (2012). Anxiety, ego depletion, and sports performance. Journal of sport & exercise psychology, 34(5), pp. 580-599. Human Kinetics Publishers

Text ContentServer.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (192kB) | Request a copy

In the present article, we analyzed the role of self-control strength and state anxiety in sports performance. We tested the hypothesis that self-control strength and state anxiety interact in predicting sports performance on the basis of two studies, each using a different sports task (Study 1: performance in a basketball free throw task, N = 64; Study 2: performance in a dart task, N = 79). The patterns of results were as expected in both studies: Participants with depleted self-control strength performed worse in the specific tasks as their anxiety increased, whereas there was no significant relation for participants with fully available self-control strength. Furthermore, different degrees of available self-control strength did not predict performance in participants who were low in state anxiety, but did in participants who were high in state anxiety. Thus increasing self-control strength could reduce the negative anxiety effects in sports and improve athletes' performance under pressure.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

5 since deposited on 12 Mar 2015
1 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item