Achievement goals and gender effects on multidimensional anxiety in national elite sport

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Psychology of Sport and Exercise 9 (2008) 449–464 www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport

Achievement goals and gender effects on multidimensional anxiety in national elite sport Frank Eirik Abrahamsen, Glyn C. Roberts, Anne Marte Pensgaard Norwegian University of Sport Sciences, P.O. Box 4014, Ullevaal Stadion, N-0806 OSLO, Norway Received 19 May 2006; received in revised form 18 June 2007; accepted 28 June 2007 Available online 26 July 2007

Abstract Objectives: The present paper examined the roles of achievement orientation, perception of the motivational climate, and perceived ability on performance trait anxiety in a sample of national level elite athletes. Gender differences in these relationships were also examined. Design: Cross-sectional. Methods: One hundred and ninety national elite athletes (male, n ¼ 101 and female, n ¼ 89) from individual sport completed Norwegian measures of goal orientation, perceived motivational climate, perceived ability, and multidimensional performance anxiety. Results: Female and male national elite athletes were similar in achievement orientations and had similar perceptions of the motivational climate. Females reported higher levels of performance worry, concentration disruption and somatic anxiety than males. Orientations did not predict performance anxiety for either gender, however perceptions of a performance climate predicted performance worry for both genders, and concentration disruption for females. Perceived ability predicted less performance worry for females and males. Perceived ability did not moderate the effects of the perceived motivational climate on performance anxiety, and neither did the results meet the criteria for testing mediation. Conclusions: The extant motivational climate has an effect on performance anxiety, and coaches would be well advised to consider this when working with national elite athletes. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Achievement motivation; Gender; Anxiety

Corresponding author. Tel.: +47 23 26 24 42, mobile: +47 41 42 38 19; fax: +47 23 26 24 20.

E-mail address: [email protected] (F.E. Abrahamsen). 1469-0292/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2007.06.005

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Introduction Performance anxiety and motivation are both popular research topics in sport psychology (Duda & Hall, 2001). Despite early theoretical (Roberts, 1986) and empirical (Vealey & Campbell, 1988) work investigating the association between motivational constructs and manifested stress and anxiety, Duda and Hall (2001) state that it is paradoxical that so few studies have empirically examined the relationship between motivational goals and anxiety in sports. In particular, with a few exceptions (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2003), there is little research investigating elite athletes. In the case of Pensgaard and Roberts (2003), they found associations between motivational goals and coping processes of elite Winter sport athletes. They speculated that men and women might experience the competitive situation differently that influences performance anxiety differentially for male and female athletes. The purpose of the present study was to examine achievement goal theory’s (AGT) predictions with performance anxiety with national level elite athletes, and investigate potential gender differences in how dispositional goal orientations, perceived motivational climate and perceived ability may interact with performance anxiety. Much work on performance anxiety emanates from the essential distinction between trait and state anxiety (Spielberger, 1966). Simply put, state anxiety is regarded as a right here and now feeling of apprehension and tension. Trait anxiety, the focus in the present study, is an acquired disposition predisposing a person to respond to a variety of situations with high levels of state anxiety (Woodman & Hardy, 2001). Performance anxiety is regarded as an unpleasant emotion that has the potential to influence subsequent performance very negatively (Woodman & Hardy, 2001). Currently, performance anxiety is considered to be multidimensional (Martens, Vealey, & Burton, 1990; Smith, Smoll, & Wiechman, 1998), consisting of one cognitive component (worry about performance, negative judgment of oneself and the situation) and one physiological component (somatic symptoms, such as sweating, butterflies in the stomach, increased muscle tension). One of the first to suggest an association between achievement goals and performance anxiety was Roberts (1986), where differences in the athletes’ achievement goals were hypothesized to make them more or less likely to experience anxiety in achievement situations. The hypotheses were derived from AGT that assumes that individuals engage in achievement situations to demonstrate competence or ability, or avoid displaying incompetence (e.g., Dweck, 1986; Maehr, 1984; Nicholls, 1989). However, it is argued that two conceptions of ability exist and lead to two states of motivational involvement (Nicholls, 1989). The state of involvement is assumed to be driven by the athletes’ personal beliefs about the causes of success and failure, and athletes are thought to be either task or ego involved in achievement situations. Whether athletes adopt one state of involvement or the other is thought to be influenced by a combination of personal dispositional goals and environmental factors. The dispositional tendency to be either ego or task involved is termed ego and task orientation, respectively. A predominantly task-oriented athlete will typically use self-referenced criteria to judge success and failure in achievement settings, where mastery and learning of new skills and activities are interpreted as success. A task-oriented person is hypothesized to be less likely to experience performance anxiety, because the criteria for success or failure lie within the person. Even though the outcome in an achievement situation might not be an objective successful experience, this athlete may experience success in terms of improvement and enjoyment. A predominantly

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ego-oriented athlete typically uses normative criteria to judge success in sport, such as demonstration of higher ability than others (e.g., outperforming others), getting feedback from others, and other public praise. In general, this athlete will focus on winning and beating others. This athlete would experience anxiety as a function of whether or not they believe they can demonstrate competence in achievement situations (Roberts, 2001). For ego-oriented athletes, perceived ability is thought to influence the relationship with anxiety. As long as the perception of ability is high, they are less likely to experience anxiety, because they believe they will succeed in the demonstration of competence. When ego-oriented athletes doubt their abilities to compare favorably with others, a failure to demonstrate competence is expected, and precompetitive anxiety is more likely to occur (Duda & Hall, 2001). One way an athlete becomes task or ego involved in achievement situations is influenced by these dispositional orientations. The achievement goals are usually regarded to be orthogonal (e.g., Roberts, 2001). Thus, athletes can be both highly ego oriented and highly task oriented, low in both, or high in one orientation and low in the other. Athletes enter the achievement situation with such dispositions, but athletes also are influenced by the context which may alter these a priori dispositions (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). How the context influences an athlete depends on how the context is subjectively interpreted as to the criteria of success and failure that are present (Ames, 1992a, 1992b). Ames and her colleagues have called the perceived situational goal structure the motivational climate. An achievement context which is perceived to encourage learning, improvement and mastery is called a mastery climate, because it encourages task involvement. An environment that emphasizes evaluation of normative ability and competition with others is called a performance motivational climate, and is assumed to promote ego involvement. In general, the predicted relationship of achievement goal orientations to anxiety has been supported (see Roberts, 2001), but most studies have been conducted with very young athletes (e.g., Hall & Kerr, 1997) or in recreational sports or physical education (e.g., Hall, Kerr, & Matthews, 1998; Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999; Papaioannou & Kouli, 1999). There is a need to determine whether the results are replicable with elite level athletes. Vealey and Cambell (1988) found that higher levels of anxiety were associated with an outcome (ego) orientation, whereas higher task orientation and high levels of sport confidence were related to lower levels of precompetitive anxiety in adolescent figure skaters. Similar results have been reported with young junior foil fencers (Hall & Kerr, 1997), high school runners (Hall et al., 1998), ninth grade PE students (Ommundsen, 2001), young soccer players (Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999), and undergraduate students in a tennis skill course (Newton & Duda, 1995). In brief, an ego orientation has been related with more performance anxiety and task orientation with less performance anxiety. Fewer studies have investigated how athletes’ perceptions of the climate influence performance anxiety. Ntoumanis and Biddle (1998) used both perceived motivational climate and dispositions to investigate performance state anxiety. As expected, they found that a performance climate was related to ego orientation, whereas a mastery climate was associated with task orientation. Ego orientation, through self-confidence, had an impact both on cognitive and somatic anxiety. However, no such link was found for task orientation. The motivational climate had no direct links with performance anxiety; though the authors contend that the climate may have an indirect effect through the different goal orientations. Because elite athletes are often highly ego and task

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oriented, it might be that the climate is more influential for this group as the climate evokes the appropriate goal involvement (Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002), and that men and women have different perceptions of the competitive situation (Pensgaard & Roberts, 2003). The gender effect was examined by White and Zellner (1996) who investigated gender differences in task and ego orientation, and its potential effect on performance trait anxiety with high school, intercollegiate, and college age recreational sport participants. Canonical correlation revealed that athletes higher in ego orientation than task orientation were more likely to experience concentration disruption prior to and during performance. The female athletes were more task oriented than their male counterparts, and reported worrying and being more somatically anxious than the males. Typically, female athletes tend to be more task oriented and/or less ego oriented than male athletes (e.g., Kavussanu & Roberts, 1996, 2001; Newton & Duda, 1993). For an overview, see Duda and Whitehead (1998). Although not consistent (see Martens et al., 1990), females tend to report higher anxiety levels than males and rate this anxiety as more debilitative for performance (e.g., Jones & Cale, 1989; Jones, Swain, & Cale, 1991; Krane & Williams, 1994; Thatcher, Thatcher, & Dorling, 2004). For instance, Thatcher et al. (2004) found a significant time by gender interaction for cognitive and somatic anxiety intensity with six male and six female athletes. Males’ self-reported anxiety levels mirrored their adrenalin and noradrenalin responses, with no significant changes over time. For females the anxiety responses increased, and were accompanied by decreases in adrenaline and noradrenalin. Study purpose The major interest of the present study was to extend previous research by using a national elite sample, and exploring the relationship of achievement motivation to performance anxiety. We measured athletes’ achievement dispositions, thus a dispositional anxiety instrument was preferred (see Duda, 2001; Duda & Nicholls, 1992). Based on the extant literature, we predicted that females would report higher levels of performance anxiety compared to their male counterparts. However, we wished to investigate why the contradiction to AGT predictions occur, where females typically rate higher in task orientation but still perceive higher performance anxiety. Thus we investigated whether goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate would affect performance anxiety differently for female and male athletes. Finally, we measured perceived ability, because perceived ability is related to stress and performance anxiety (e.g., Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999; Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000), and research has shown that perception of the motivational climate predicted future perceived ability (Whitehead, Lee, & Andre´e, 1999). Therefore, perceived ability may influence the relationship of achievement goals and perceived motivational climate on performance anxiety.

Method Participants and procedure Participants included 190 male (N ¼ 101) and female (N ¼ 89) athletes participating in different individual sports (athletics, badminton, golf, orienteering, swimming, and tennis) in Norway

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(mean age ¼ 17.8 years, SD ¼ 5.7). Athletes were all recruited from teams that participated in national championships within the previous 6 months, and some athletes were on the national teams of their respective sports. All athletes rated themselves to be of a high national or elite level. Standard APA procedures and national regulations for the ethical conduct of research were followed. The investigators contacted club secretaries and asked whether their club was interested in participating, to which nearly all agreed. The club secretaries then distributed written information about the study and the questionnaires to the athletes. The question package included a prepaid envelope. The athletes were asked to mail the completed questionnaires to the first author. A few questionnaires were given to athletes by the first author, who met some of the athletes in person. These athletes placed the completed questionnaire into a blank envelope before giving the questionnaire to the first author. All responses were anonymous. The response rate from the athletes was between 70% and 80%. The questionnaire package included background variables, measurement of dispositional goal orientations, perceived motivational climate, perceived ability and multidimensional trait anxiety in sport. Data analyses All data were analyzed with the SPSS program. The data was transformed by the first author, and double checked by a paid assistant, before it was compared with the original data a final time. The data were screened for missing values and outliers as recommended (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). Because of few missing values and that different replacement techniques gave similar results, we replaced missing values by mean substitution which is considered to be conservative (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). In the present sample, all cases were kept after screening for potential outliers (see Hair et al., 1998). For each analyses examining our hypotheses, we also completed screening procedures as recommended (Hair et al., 1988; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). Measures Dispositional goal orientation. The Norwegian version (Roberts & Ommundsen, 1996) of the Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ; Roberts & Balague, 1989; Roberts, Treasure, & Balague, 1998) was used to assess dispositional goal orientation. The Norwegian version has demonstrated adequate reliability and internal consistency (Ommundsen, Roberts, & Kavussanu, 1998; Roberts & Ommundsen, 1996). The instrument consists of 12 items, with six items on both the ego orientation and the task orientation subscales. Scores are recorded on a five point Likert scale, and anchored by strongly disagree and strongly agree. The scale was reworded in order to reflect individual sports which has been successfully utilized previously (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000). The stem for each item was: ‘‘I feel most successful wheny’’ Separate mean scores were calculated for each subscale. One item was deleted on the task scale (I do my best), following item analyses to heighten the internal consistency. The scale provided satisfactory internal reliability in the present study (Table 1). Perceived motivational climate. The Norwegian version (Roberts & Ommundsen, 1996) of the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire (PMCSQ; Seifriz, Duda, & Chi, 1992) was used in the present study to evaluate participants’ perceptions of the motivational climate in their

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Table 1 Mean and standard deviation for all variables, with gender differences Variable

Mean

F

SD

Sig.a

eta2b

Alpha

All

Female

Male

All

Female

Male

3.62 4.64

3.60 4.60

3.65 4.70

.87 .50

.88 .58

.86 .41

.13 2.05

.716 .154

.00 .01

.86 .84

Motivational climate (PMCSQ) Performance (PC) 2.80 Mastery (MC) 4.43

2.79 4.45

2.81 4.41

.73 .55

.77 .51

.70 .58

.03 .30

.863 .583

.00 .00

.82 .80

Perceived ability (PA)

4.20

4.10

4.29

.57

.60

.54

5.22

.023

.03

.68

Performance trait anxiety (SAS) Somatic (SA) 1.89 Worry (WO) 1.84 Concentration D. (CD) 1.62

2.01 2.06 1.72

1.79 1.64 1.53

.49 .57 .53

.51 .57 .59

.45 .50 .46

9.57 28.18 6.13

.002 .000 .014

.05 .13 .03

.80 .83 .68

Goal orientation (POSQ) Ego (EO) Task (TO)

a

Significance of gender differences in the variables. Partial eta2 for gender differences in the variables.

b

team. The version in the present study consists of 20 items, with two subscales measuring perceptions of a performance climate (11 items) and a mastery climate (nine items). The mastery subscale consisted of items that emphasize cooperation and effort, whereas the performance subscale consisted of items emphasizing self-interest and uneven treatment due to skill level differences. All responses were indicated on a five point Likert scale. The stem for each item was: ‘‘I experience thaty’’ Separate mean scores were calculated for each subscale. Previously, the scale has demonstrated satisfactory validity and reliability (e.g., Kavussanu & Roberts, 1996; Seifriz et al., 1992; Walling, Duda, & Chi, 1993), as well as the Norwegian version (e.g., Roberts & Ommundsen, 1996). The scale was reworded in order to reflect the team climate in individual sports, which has been used successfully in Norway previously (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000). In the present study following item analyses, four items were deleted to heighten internal reliability on the mastery climate scale. All items were kept in the performance climate subscale. Both scales provided satisfactory internal reliability in the present study (Table 1). Perceived ability (PA). Three items from the intrinsic motivation inventory (McAuley, Duncan, & Tammen, 1989) was translated from the perceived ability subscale into Norwegian, using the translation-back-translation procedure. The scale has proven reliable with adequate internal consistency with Norwegian athletes in the past (e.g., Ommundsen, 2001). The participants responded on a five point Likert scale anchored by strongly disagree and strongly agree. The stem for each item was: ‘‘I experience thaty’’ Additionally, one question asked about the athletes’ general ability in their sport, also with a five point Likert scale, anchored by very good to very bad. The internal reliability was acceptable in the present study (Table 1). Norwegian version of the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS-N). The Norwegian version of the instrument (SAS-N) was used to assess performance trait anxiety (Abrahamsen, Roberts, & Pensgaard, 2006). The SAS is a 21-item questionnaire constructed by Smith and colleagues

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(Smith, Smoll, & Schutz, 1990). It consists of three subscales that assess somatic anxiety (nine items), worry (seven items) and concentration disruption (five items). Participants respond to the items on a 4-point Likert scale. Extensive studies were undertaken in the development of the scale, and it has demonstrated adequate convergent and retest reliability (Smith et al., 1990). Recent retests that have re-evaluated the factorial composition and factor structure of the SAS support the instrument as a whole ( Dunn et al., 2000; Prapavessis, Maddison, & Fletcher, 2005; Smith, Cumming, & Smith, 2006), although the findings question the underpinning of the original concentration disruption subscale. The Norwegian version of the instrument (SAS-N) was similar to the original however and also demonstrated adequate reliability (see Abrahamsen et al., 2006). In the present study, the internal reliabilities were adequate (Table 1).

Results The first table shows that the national elite athletes in this sample, females and males, report both high levels of task orientation as well as ego orientation (see Duda & Whitehead, 1998). These were expected findings. We also see that the athletes perceive a mastery climate more than a performance climate. The mean scores for perceived ability and anxiety dimensions are also found in Table 1. In order to test the hypothesis that there would be gender differences in the variables of interest, a one-way MANOVA was conducted over gender. A significant multivariate main effect was found with Wilks’ lambda .82, F (11,178) ¼ 4.001, po.001. Univariate ANOVA’s were used as post-hoc analyses, and are presented in Table 1 with mean scores for female and male athletes. Independent variables in the following analyses are achievement orientations and perceived motivational climates, whereas performance anxiety subscales act as dependent variables. As aforementioned; perceived ability is thought to influence the relationship between motivation and anxiety. Table 1 demonstrates that gender differences appeared in the performance anxiety subscales and in perceived ability, but not in motivational orientation nor in perceptions of motivational climate. Thus, our first hypothesis was supported when gender differences in anxiety levels and in perceived ability were found. Due to the gender main effect in the MANOVA, the remaining analyses were conducted for men and women separately. Simple correlations with all variables are presented in Table 2. Regressions Pensgaard and Roberts (2000) hypothesized that the climate could be especially important for high-level athletes. Therefore, we chose to use standard multiple regressions to determine whether the motivational variables influenced the performance anxiety dimensions. Unless there are special reasons for using other regression techniques, this is also the method of choice to asses multivariate relationships between variables (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996, p. 153). All independent variables were centered on the grand mean before analyses (Jaccard & Turrisi, 2003). The regression analyses are presented for females first and males second (Tables 3 and 4).1 1 One of the reviewers rightly points to the fact that even though there are different associations between the variables for female and male athletes, the differences might not be significantly different. In order to test the assumption that

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Table 2 Correlation for female and male athletes: Orientations, climate, ability, and anxiety 1. EO

2. TO

3. PC

4. MC

5. PA

6. SA

7. WO

Females 1. Ego orientation (EO) 2. Task orientation (TO) 3. Performance climate (PC) 4. Mastery climate (MC) 5. Perceived ability (PA) 6. Somatic anxiety (SA) 7. Worry (WO) 8. Concentration disruption (CD)

.46*** .10 .04 .23* .02 .01 .17

.01 .17 .45*** .04 .13 .26*

.33** .13 .15 .31** .25*

.32** .13 .14 .16

.02 .30** .27*

.36*** .23*

.52***

Males 1. Ego orientation (EO) 2. Task orientation (TO) 3. Performance climate (PC) 4. Mastery climate (MC) 5. Perceived ability (PA) 6. Somatic anxiety (SA) 7. Worry (WO) 8. Concentration Disruption (CD)

.34*** .34*** .06 .02 .02 .26** .16

.01 .18 .22* .04 .10 .05

.09 .12 .03 .39*** .13

.33*** .04 .14 .03

.07 .34*** .11

.37*** .16

.49***

***Significant at the 0.05 level. **Significant at the 0.01 level. *Significant at the 0.001 level.

Independent variables were selected for inclusion in the regression equations when significant correlations between the variables were found as recommended by Hair et al. (1998). We decided also to test whether the perceived motivational climate could predict perceived ability, based on previous research (Whitehead et al., 1999) and the correlation analyses. Accordingly, there were different regression equations for males and females. The table shows that a performance climate predicted more performance worries, and perceived ability predicted less performance worries, for females and males alike. A performance climate predicted more concentration disruption with female athletes. Previous research has tested whether perceived ability moderates the effects of (footnote continued) there are significant gender differences in association between the variables, we include regression analyses with interaction effects of gender x motivational variables on the variables of interest. Originally this was not included, because we believe conceptually that it is not coherent to include gender at the same level as the motivational climate. Several authors regard the development of motivational orientation (from the motivational climate) to be a product of different socialization processes for female and male athletes (e.g., Biddle et al., 2003; White & Duda, 1994). This view is more coherent with a mediational model. However, we also believe that the procedure asked for by the reviewer strengthens the analyses. Thus, additional regression analyses with significant findings are included in Table 4. We found significant interaction models between gender and perceived motivational climate for worry and perceived ability only, although the different interaction terms did not reach significance for perceived ability (see Table 4). On several occasions the findings were close to be significant, thus we show the exact values for the significant levels for the interaction analyses.

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Table 3 Standard regression for female and male athletes B

Std. b

t

p

.27 .26

2.74 2.62

.007 .010

Concentration disruption (CD) F(3,85) ¼ 5.039, p ¼ .003, adjusted R2 ¼ .14 Task orientation (TO) .19 .11 .19 Performance climate (PC) .18 .08 .24 Perceived ability (PA) .15 .11 .16

1.71 2.32 1.38

Ns .023 Ns

Perceived ability (PA) F(3,85) ¼ 10.153, po.000, adjusted R2 ¼ .24 Ego orientation (EO) .03 .07 Task orientation (TO) .39 .11 Mastery climate (MC) .30 .11

.05 .38 .26

.44 3.61 2.71

ns .001 .008

Males Worry (WO) F(3,97) ¼ 11.589, po.000, adjusted R2 ¼ .24 Ego orientation (EO) .10 .05 Performance climate (PC) .22 .07 Perceived ability (PA) .29 .08

.16 .30 .31

1.77 3.21 3.48

Ns .002 .001

Perceived ability (PA) F(2,98) ¼ 10.153, p ¼ .001, adjusted R2 ¼ .12 Task orientation (TO) .22 .13 Mastery climate (MC) .28 .09

.17 .30

1.76 3.11

ns .002

SE b

Females Worry (WO) F(2,86) ¼ 8.231, p ¼ .001, adjusted R2 ¼ .14 Performance climate (PC) .20 .07 Perceived ability (PA) .25 .10

Table 4 Regression analyses with gender  motivational variables SE b

Std. b

t

p

.04 .10 .02 .08 .10

.40 .40 .57 .09 .98

1.75 .89 2.96 .24 2.67

.081 .372 .003 .808 .008

Perceived ability (PA) F(4,185) ¼ 3.237, po.05, adjusted R2 ¼ .05 Gender  ego orientation (EO) .01 .05 Gender  task orientation (TO) .04 .10 Gender  performance climate (PC) .04 .02 Gender  mastery climate (MC) .15 .08

.05 .16 .38 .65

.20 .36 1.77 1.87

.839 .721 .078 .063

Females

B

Worry (WO) F(5,184) ¼ 11.679, po.001, adjusted R2 ¼ .22 Gender  ego orientation (EO) .07 Gender  task orientation (TO) .09 Gender  performance climate (PC) .06 Gender  mastery climate (MC) .02 Gender  perceived ability (PA) .27

achievement goals on performance anxiety (e.g., Ommundsen & Pedersen, 1999). In line with this, we tested for possible interaction effects of perceived ability and perceived motivational climates on performance worry for both females and males, using the procedures recommended by Aiken

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Estimated Marginal Means of SASWORRY

Gender female male

Estimated Marginal Means

2.25

2.00

1.75

1.50

1.25

low

medium

high

PERFORMANCE CLIMATE: high medium and low

Fig. 1. Gender differences in the association between perceived performance climate and performance worry.

and West (1991) (Fig. 1). Interestingly however, interactions between perceived performance climate and perceived ability were not significant for either gender. Tests for mediation of perceived ability between performance climate and performance anxiety could not be performed, because the variables did not meet the criteria for mediation as proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986).

Discussion The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between goal orientations, perceived motivational climate and performance anxiety in national level sport athletes. Also, we investigated whether gender differences occur. Elite athletes, AGT, and performance anxiety One of the major findings of the present study was that national elite level athletes are both relatively highly ego and highly task oriented, which is in concert with previous research with elite athletes (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002). Interestingly, the present results seem to reflect that elite female and male athletes both have similar achievement orientations, as well as similar perceptions of the motivational climate. Previous research with non-elite or younger athletes often

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find that female athletes are more task oriented than males (e.g., Duda, Olson, & Templin, 1991; Newton & Duda, 1993), and also perceive less of a performance climate (e.g., Miller, Roberts, & Ommundsen, 2003). The evidence in the present study support the contentions of Cox (2007) that being both task and ego oriented while perceiving a mastery climate might be the best combination of orientations and the motivational climate for both males and females. An important finding of the present study is the fact that it revealed gender differences in anxiety levels. When gender differences have been found in previous research, females usually report higher anxiety levels than males and have also reported more debilitative interpretation of this anxiety for their performance (e.g., Jones & Cale, 1989; Jones et al., 1991; Krane & Williams, 1994; Thatcher et al., 2004). The present results are generally in accord with these findings. However, we do have a contradiction to previous findings. Previous studies have shown that females are more task oriented than males and still experience more performance worries (e.g., White & Zellner, 1996). This was not the case here. Female and male elite athletes were similar in achievement goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate, yet the female athletes in the present study still reported that they experienced more performance anxiety. In the present study, it is doubtful that the achievement orientations of female and male elite athletes can explain these differences. Thus, the attention turns to the perceived motivational climate. One of the features of the present study was the fact that the motivational climate, even though similarly perceived by the athletes, had a different role to play in prediction of performance anxiety with the female and male athletes. The results were similar for females and males with regard to worry; however, perception of a performance climate predicted more concentration disruption with the females. These findings suggest that the motivational climate is important for both genders, but perhaps more so for females. Whether the perceived motivational climate should be considered to moderate or mediate the gender effect on anxiety is an unresolved issue, and the present study gives no conclusive answers. The interaction effect of gender and perceptions of a performance climate was significantly related with more performance worries, whereas the interaction effects almost reached significance for somatic anxiety and concentration disruption. However, several authors have regarded the development of motivational orientation as a product of different socialization processes such as the motivational climate (e.g., Biddle, Wang, Kavussanu, & Spray, 2003; White & Duda, 1994). Thus, it may be that the effect of gender on anxiety and perceived competence should better be considered as a mediational effect of the motivational climate. The present findings indicated that perceptions of a performance climate predicted more worries for both genders, and also concentration disruption for females. Research in the future should investigate whether athletes that are predominantly task oriented are affected differently in a performance climate, compared to those who are predominantly ego oriented. As we have noted above, the achievement orientations did not predict performance worries and this is at odds with previous results. For instance, in a study where both orientation and perception of climate were measured, Ntoumanis and Biddle (1998) reported that ego orientation, but not the climate, effected the levels (intensity) and the interpretation (direction) of cognitive and somatic anxiety symptoms through self-confidence. In a study by Pensgaard and Roberts (2000), a mastery climate was negatively associated with the coach as a source of distress. Because elite athletes have a profile of being very high in both orientations, Pensgaard and Roberts (2002) argued that elite athletes may be especially vulnerable to alterations in the motivational climate created by the coach, and this may have a huge role to play in the perception of anxiety. The

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present findings are consistent with their argument, although longitudinal studies are needed to verify their contention. For both women and men, a performance climate predicted worry, and for women only, predicted concentration disruption. When coaches are more prone to be competitive and focus on ego involving criteria of success, female athletes experience greater concentration disruption. The positive applied message in these finding is that it is more practical to change the climate for the athletes through the coach, rather than change the motivational orientation for several athletes (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002). Coaches who chiefly adopt performance criteria in their interaction with high level athletes heighten performance worries and possibly increase concentration disruption. For women athletes, it seems to be especially important that the coach employs mastery criteria. Thus, the findings provide more evidence that mastery motivational climates help elite athletes to better cope with anxiety in and between competitions. The role of perceived ability in elite sports One should not underestimate the role that perceived ability plays in elite sports. From an AGT perspective, one should be less prone to experience performance anxiety if one is primarily task oriented or is ego oriented with high perceptions of one’s own ability (e.g., Roberts, 2001) and previous research has supported this (e.g., Hall & Kerr, 1997; Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1998). The present findings lend support to this argument as well. Perceived ability did predict lower levels of performance worries for male and female athletes. Surprisingly, an ego orientation was positively correlated with perceived ability for female athletes and with worry for males, although the regression analyses did not reproduce these findings. It could be that being an elite athlete is more unique and distinctive for female athletes. As such, female athletes who progress to the top level may have high perceptions of their ability, thus giving a significant and positive relationship between ego orientation and ability for females. Males, on the other hand, may not feel that special, because being a full-time athlete is still more common for males. If similar results are replicated in future studies, the findings may suggest that an ego orientation is more negative for male athletes than for female athletes in elite sport. However, the regression analyses in general failed to reproduce these correlation findings, therefore future studies should examine whether these results are replicable. On the flipside, both a task orientation (females only) and a mastery climate (both genders) were associated with higher levels of perceived ability. How the different climates relate to perception of ability should be a subject for longitudinal studies because theoretically a mastery climate should not be predictive of high normative perceived ability. As for instance Chi (2004) argues, it may be that athletes who perceive primarily a task involving environment focus on personal improvement, thus giving them the perception of control over the environmental demands. In addition, the coaches who create a mastery climate may focus on encouraging high perception of normative ability with their athletes. Generating high confidence through assuring athletes that they have the competencies to succeed may be a way that coaches of elite athletes foster perceptions of high ability through a mastery climate. A surprise however, was the fact that perceived ability did not moderate the relationship between a performance climate and performance anxiety, when testing for interactions in the regression equations. Nor did the results meet the criteria in order to test for mediation. Elite

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athletes are thought to perceive their ability as high (e.g., Duda & White, 1992), which was the case in the present study. However, perceived ability may be perceived relative to their peer elite athletes’ ability (Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000). This may be the reason why perceptions of a performance climate predicted more anxiety, whereas higher levels of perceived ability predicted less performance worries. It seems that elite athletes are vulnerable to changes in the motivational climate (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002) and from perceptions of their own ability. As found by Pensgaard and Roberts (2000), regardless of the perceived climate, low perceptions of ability meant that elite athletes perceived more stress. This has practical consequences: Practitioners may have to work with both the motivational climate within the team as previously mentioned, and also help to enhance the belief in ability of the individual athlete. Thus, working only with affecting the motivational climate through the coach may not be enough.

Limitations and concluding comments The present findings lend support to AGT’s predictions regarding performance anxiety among high level athletes, and indicate that there are some gender differences in how achievement goals and perceptions of the climate influence performance anxiety. However, there may be several causes to differences in performance anxiety. In general psychology, a meta-analysis across different cultures revealed that females systematically report higher levels of anxiety (Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001). Also, in a study which compared implicit and explicit anxiety measures, females reported significantly higher levels of anxiety on both (Egloff & Schmuckle, 2004). However, in the implicit measure, the effect size was about half as large. Perhaps females are simply more honest in their affective responses in sport. Whether some of the gender differences in performance anxiety are due to social desirability responses should be tested in later studies. Elite athletes are exceptional in many ways, and future studies that try to discriminate between novice and elite sport participants are welcome. For instance, it may be that the instrument intended to measure perceived ability is not sensitive enough to use with high level athletes. Perhaps we need to develop elite competencies measures, and examine whether the present results are replicated. Most of the studies on AGT and anxiety is correlational in design (e.g., Hall & Kerr, 1997; Ommundsen, 2001; White & Zellner, 1996). This is a limitation of the present study also. In order to advance our knowledge on the relationship between the motivational climate and performance anxiety, future studies should implement longitudinal designs or experiments. Conducting an experiment such as the Yoo (2003) study might be difficult with elite athletes, because of the ethical considerations. A strong point of the current study was the attempt to investigate AGT and anxiety with national elite athletes, although longitudinal studies might advance our understanding with this group further. In the present study, the motivational climate seemed to be more influential on performance anxiety than achievement goal orientation for both male and female athletes. This is promising, because it may be easier to alter the motivational climate than the orientation of the individual athlete (e.g., Whitehead et al., 1999). The findings in the present study strongly suggest that one should work with an individual’s perceived ability even at the elite level. Furthermore, longitudinal effects of the climate on performance anxiety and perceived ability should also be

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