In competition, compound archers are less anxious than recurve archers

1 study · 156 archers measured

The comparison has been made only once, in a hundred and fifty-six archers who had taken part in the 2018 Turkey Cup and who filled in Spielberger's inventory, which separates state anxiety, how anxious someone feels in the moment, from trait anxiety, how anxious they tend to be in general. The forty-six compound archers report slightly lower state anxiety than the hundred and ten recurve archers, 57.6 against 61.1 on a scale from 20 to 80, while trait anxiety is practically the same, 40.3 against 41.2. The difference is just over three points and barely holds up: the paper prints a test statistic that does not match its own means, and recalculating it leaves the result just under the threshold (p = 0.048), or takes it just over (p = 0.07) if the two groups are not assumed to have the same variance. Two things needed to read it are also missing: the paper does not say when the questionnaires were filled in, or whether it was during the competition, and the compound archers are not compared with the recurve archers at equal age, sex or level. It is a weak pointer, from a single cross-sectional study published 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: "compound archers are calmer"; "competition anxiety compound versus recurve"; "the compound is less stressful in competition"; "anxiety and bow type"

In practice

It is often said that the compound is the calmer bow to take into competition: with a release aid, a magnifying sight and the hold against the wall, the shot depends less on the fingers, so the competition weighs less on the nerves.

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, 46 compound and 110 recurve, with the Turkish version of Spielberger's inventory: state anxiety 57.63 ± 11.31 in compound against 61.05 ± 9.09 in recurve archers; trait anxiety 40.28 ± 9.44 against 41.22 ± 8.85 (t = -0.591, p = 0.556). For state anxiety the table prints t = -0.828 with p = 0.009, two values that agree neither with each other nor with the means: recalculating from the means and standard deviations gives t(154) = -1.99 with p = 0.048, and p = 0.07 with Welch's test. When the questionnaires were completed is not stated.

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

Status history

1990 Not studied In the registry's bibliography nobody has yet compared the competition anxiety of compound archers with that of recurve archers. The idea circulates among archers, but no study has yet put it to the test.
2019 Not studied A hundred and fifty-six archers who had taken part in the 2018 Turkey Cup fill in a questionnaire on state and trait anxiety. The forty-six compound archers report slightly lower state anxiety than the hundred and ten recurve archers, 57.6 against 61.1, while trait anxiety is the same, 40.3 against 41.2. The test statistic printed in the paper matches neither the means nor the stated significance: recalculating it puts the difference just under the threshold (p = 0.048), and over it if the two variances are not assumed to be equal (p = 0.07). The paper does not say when the questionnaires were filled in, or whether it was during the competition, and the two groups are not matched on anything else. It is a single cross-sectional comparison, on the borderline, in a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports it but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.

Research lines

32 studiesThe archer's mental profile: forty years of questionnaires

Cite

APA

Campagna, M. (2026). In competition, compound archers are less anxious than recurve archers (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/competition-anxiety-compound-recurve

BibTeX

@misc{campagna2026_ansiacompoundricurvo,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {In competition, compound archers are less anxious than recurve archers},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/competition-anxiety-compound-recurve},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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