Matteo Campagna
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An archer's competition anxiety does not change with age

1 study · 156 archers measured

The only comparison comes from a hundred and fifty-six archers who had taken part in the 2018 Turkey Cup and who filled in Spielberger's inventory on state anxiety, how anxious someone feels in the moment, and trait anxiety, how anxious they tend to be in general. Split into four age bands of very different sizes (eighty-seven aged 14 to 24, seventeen aged 25 to 35, thirty-two aged 36 to 46 and twenty aged 47 and over), they show no difference in either (p = 0.63 and 0.68). The paper, however, reports only the analysis of variance and not the means of each band, so not even the direction of the small differences there are can be seen. A null result says that the study saw no difference, not that there is none, and here there are three reasons for caution: the youngest band puts fourteen-year-olds together with adults of twenty-four, age is not separated from years of practice, and the paper does not say when the questionnaires were filled in, or whether it was during the competition. It is a single cross-sectional study, in a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports it but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.

Also phrased as: "competition anxiety drops with age"; "young archers are more anxious"; "archers get calmer as they get older"; "age and anxiety in archery"

In practice

It is often said that competition anxiety eases by itself over the years and that young archers feel it more than adults, and just as often the opposite is heard: that the young shoot without a care and the tension comes with age.

Evidence

  • 2019
    Context Archers Published later

    Venue with questionable editorial standards: this result does not count towards the status. 156 Turkish archers who had taken part in the 2018 Turkey Cup, in four age bands: 87 aged 14 to 24, 17 aged 25 to 35, 32 aged 36 to 46, 20 aged 47 and over. One-way analysis of variance: state anxiety F(3,152) = 0.585, p = 0.626; trait anxiety F(3,152) = 0.507, p = 0.678. The means of each band are not reported, and in the text the F values are printed without the decimal point (585 and 507).

    Examination of the Level of State- Trial Anxiety of Elite Level Archers from Several Variables Questionable venue · Haluk Saçakli

Status history

  1. 1990 Not studied In the registry's bibliography nobody has yet looked at whether an archer's competition anxiety changes with age. Opposite ideas circulate on the subject, but no study has yet put them to the test.
  2. 2019 Not studied Among a hundred and fifty-six Turkish archers who had taken part in the 2018 Turkey Cup, split into four age bands from 14-24 to 47 and over, state and trait anxiety do not change from one band to the next (p = 0.63 and 0.68). The bands are badly unbalanced, with eighty-seven archers in the youngest and seventeen in the second, and the paper does not report the means of each. A null result says that the study saw no difference, not that there is none. It is a single cross-sectional study, in a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports it but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.

Related

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). An archer's competition anxiety does not change with age (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/competition-anxiety-archer-age

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_ansiaetaarciere,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {An archer's competition anxiety does not change with age},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/competition-anxiety-archer-age},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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