Difference Between Sports Anxiety Symptoms In Individual And Team Sport Athletes
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Durci, Ian
Date Issued
March 31, 2025
Abstract
Sports anxiety is a prevalent concern among athletes and can influence performance and the overall well being of an athlete. Individual sport athletes can experience shame and guilt due to individuals' perfectionist behaviors. While team sport athletes experience anxiety in group settings, they fear negative evaluation from coaches, teammates, and other competitors which can lead to poor team dynamics. In this study we recruited Division III athletes anonymously. Athletes completed the Sports Anxiety Scale (Smith et al., 2006), which measures cognitive and somatic anxiety tendencies in competitive settings. This survey measures athletes' tendencies to experience anxiety before or during competition. The athletes differentiated themselves as individual sport athletes or team sport athletes by choosing what sport they participate in on the survey. It’s important to compare between individual and team sport athletes because these two types of athletes experience sports anxiety differently due to the unique demands of the sport they participate in. The data was analyzed from the survey by finding descriptive statistics between male and female and running an independent sample t-test to compare mean differences between individual and team sport athletes. Comparing these types of athletes is highly relevant because understanding the difference in anxiety in different athletes can help practitioners, coaches, and help athletes optimize their performance, and find effective strategies to manage anxiety.
Major
Psychology
First Reader(s)
Paulson, Lauren R.
Other Reader(s)
Pickering, Ryan
Department
Psychology
Type of Publication
Senior Project Paper
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
_Durci Final Senior Thesis (1).pdf
Size
1.03 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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