Cognitive and somatic anxiety and self-confidence in athletic performance of beach volleyball

This study considered the influence of competitive anxiety and self-confidence state responses upon athletic performance. 66 male beach volleyball players completed the translated and modified Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 which included the original intensity scale and a direction scale of Jones and Swain. Players' performance was scored from the video records using a standard rating scales. Correlations indicated scores on Direction subscale of modified Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and Self-confidence were moderately positively (r=.27 to .51) correlated with different skill components and sum of skill components of beach volleyball. Stepwise multiple regressions indicated that, as anticipated, directional perceptions of cognitive and somatic anxiety and self-confidence were significant predictors of beach volleyball performance but accounted for only 42% of variance. Original Intensity subscales of somatic and cognitive anxiety did not predict performance. Findings support the notion that direction of anxiety responses must be taken into consideration when examining anxiety-performance association in sport.