http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/20742894

Competitive anxiety and performance of professional water skiers

"The purpose of this study was three-fold: (a) to examine cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and the relationship between performance in male and female professional water skiers, and (b) to assess coping patterns of both high- and low-anxious professional water skiers, and (c) to establish whether any types of trait anxiety are common among water skiers as a group or in each division. Athletes (N = 67) completed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) within 35 minutes of each event in which they competed at the 2002 US Open, a prestigious invitational water ski tournament, the Coping Function Questionnaire (CFQ), and the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicate how high- and low-anxiety groups cope with the pressures of competition when compared to performance. Findings from the ANCOVA revealed that low cognitive-anxious (worried) female water skiers use less emotion focused coping skills than high cognitive-anxious female water skiers, whereas the cognitive male water skiers reported no significant results. Supporting the inverted-U hypothesis, the ANCOVA revealed that both high somatic anxious male and female water skiers perform better than low somatic anxious male and female water skiers. One explanation is that the somatic or physical response that arises prior to competition is a necessary component to facilitate performance for males and females in a professional water ski tournament. In addition, high somatic anxious female water skiers use more problem focused coping skills and emotion focused coping skills to negate the physiological feelings as compared to low somatic anxious female water skiers. Separate stepwise regression analyses were conducted for males and females using the CFQ and CSAI-2 subscales as predictor variables and performance as the dependent variable. In the stepwise regression analysis for females, the CFQ emotional focused coping, cognitive total anxiety, and somatic total anxiety significantly contributed as a predictor to water-ski performance. These three variables accounted for 41% of the variance in female's water ski performance. One unexpected significant finding from the stepwise regression analysis for males was that there is a negative relationship between water ski performance and emotion-focused coping. The CFQ emotional focused coping variable accounted for a negative 13% of the variance. Using emotion focused coping skills for a male water skier would impede performance. Other types of coping such as increased effort and planning to perceive control over uncontrolled situations, alcohol or drugs, or problem-focused strategies may be other possible ways male water skiers cope"--Document.

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