Competitive Anxiety, Self-Change Awareness, Response to Change-Events, and Social Comparison among Student-Athletes

Abstract

Competitive anxiety is a pivotal inhibitor of student-athletes achievement. However, not many theoretical models which incorporate perceptual factors of self, events in the environment, and other people in an integrative manner in explaining the anxiety. This study aims to investigate the role of self-change awareness, response to change-events, and social comparison in predicting the dimensions of competitive anxiety in student-athletes actively engaging in sports games and academics. The dimensions of the anxiety are somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption. The design of this study is predictive correlational. Multiple linear regression analysis was done to analyze the data. A total of 83 student-athletes (55 males, 28 females; mean of age = 20.45 years old, standard deviation of age = 1.50 years) who actively competed in sports, domiciled in Greater Area of Jakarta, Indonesia were recruited through purposive sampling technique. The result showed that the three predictors can predict two out of three dimensions of competitive anxiety. The results of this study have implications in the field of sport psychology to prevent competitive anxiety among student-athletes.

Keywords: Anxiety, Competition, Student-Athlete, Sport Psychology