In beginners, anxiety weighs on shooting only in those more prone to worry

The summary today

There is a single study, from 2018, of thirty-nine Turkish beginners aged 18 to 27, who complete a competitive anxiety questionnaire and a personality one and then shoot ten arrows at 18 metres while heart rate and breathing are recorded. Across the whole group anxiety is unrelated to the result. Split at the median for neuroticism, the tendency to worry, the two halves part ways: in the more neurotic half cognitive anxiety goes with poorer performance (r = -0.62) and the three questionnaire scores explain 30 per cent of it, while in the other half they explain nothing, neither performance nor breathing. The idea is interesting because it could explain why anxiety weighs on the score in some studies and not in others, but here it rests on subgroups of nineteen and twenty people, formed by splitting the sample in half, with many correlations examined together. The study also describes performance in two different ways, as distance from the centre in the abstract and as the sum of the arrows in the methods, and the reading above holds for the sum: if distance were what counted, the sign of the correlations would have to be read the other way round. The journal also has questionable editorial standards: the registry reports the study but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.

Also phrased as: "anxiety and personality"; "neuroticism and performance"; "worriers shoot worse"; "competition anxiety in beginners"

Evidence

• 2018
  Context Archers Published later

  Venue with questionable editorial standards: this result does not count towards the status. 39 beginners aged 18 to 27, ten arrows at 18 metres on an 80 centimetre face, split at the median for neuroticism: in the upper half cognitive anxiety is linked to poorer performance (r = -0.62, p = 0.005), and so is faster breathing while shooting (r = -0.59, p = 0.008). In the lower half neither link is present.

  Somatic Anxiety May Represent Archers' Actual Autonomic Nervous System Activity But How: Moderating Role of Personality Traits Questionable venue · Nihal Dal, Serdar Tok, Erman Doğan, İlker Balıkçı, Aylin Zekioğlu, Fatih Çatıkkaş

• 2018
  Context Archers Published later

  Venue with questionable editorial standards: this result does not count towards the status. In the same study, a regression with cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence: in the more neurotic half it explains 30% of performance (adjusted R² 0.30, F(3,15) = 3.58, p = 0.039) and 42% of breathing while shooting; in the less neurotic half it explains nothing (adjusted R² -0.001 for performance and -0.031 for breathing).

  Somatic Anxiety May Represent Archers' Actual Autonomic Nervous System Activity But How: Moderating Role of Personality Traits Questionable venue · Nihal Dal, Serdar Tok, Erman Doğan, İlker Balıkçı, Aylin Zekioğlu, Fatih Çatıkkaş

• 2018
  Context Archers Published later

  Across the whole sample none of the three anxiety questionnaire scales is linked to performance, while cognitive anxiety is linked to breathing during shooting (r = -0.43). The links with heart rate variability also differ between the two halves: self-confidence goes with lower sympathetic activation (LF, r = -0.53) only in the less neurotic, anxiety with a lower LF/HF ratio (r from -0.47 to -0.55) only in the more neurotic.

  Somatic Anxiety May Represent Archers' Actual Autonomic Nervous System Activity But How: Moderating Role of Personality Traits Questionable venue · Nihal Dal, Serdar Tok, Erman Doğan, İlker Balıkçı, Aylin Zekioğlu, Fatih Çatıkkaş

Status history

1. 2018 Not studied Thirty-nine Turkish beginners are split at the median for neuroticism. In the half more prone to worry cognitive anxiety goes with poorer performance (r = -0.62) and the anxiety and confidence questionnaires explain 30 per cent of the variance in performance; in the other half they explain nothing, neither performance nor breathing, and across the whole group anxiety is unrelated to the result. A single study, subgroups of nineteen and twenty people, performance defined one way in the abstract and another in the methods, and a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports the study but does not use it to decide the status, which remains not studied.

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Research lines

• 56 studiesAnxiety and confidence in archery competition since 1986
• 32 studiesThe archer's mental profile: forty years of questionnaires

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