Wofford Spring 2020 Project: Anxiety and Sports Performance Analysis

This project proposal investigates the significant impact of anxiety on athletic performance, a critical factor often leading to underperformance. The research aims to determine the ways in which anxiety affects athletes, causing them to perform below their capabilities, and to explore effective methods for helping them realize their full potential. The proposal outlines the background of anxiety, differentiating between state and trait anxiety and their roles in sports. The research will utilize questionnaires to gather data from athletes, focusing on their experiences with anxiety during performance. The ultimate goal is to identify strategies to reduce anxiety and improve performance, offering recommendations for athletes to manage and overcome performance-related stress. The project aligns with the larger theme of sports performance, focusing on a topic of personal interest and providing a basis for an argumentative research paper.

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TO DETERMINE HOW BADLY ANXIETY RESULTS INTO UNDERPERFORMANCE IN
SPORTS
Thesis
Anxiety in players during or before performance should be treated with a lot of
seriousness because it t has become the worst enemy that results into underperformance. If a way
or procedure can be formulated on how to help the sports people to manage and even do away
with anxiety before performance, there could be so much that can be achieved in terms of talent.
This research will focus on determining the ways in which people experiencing anxiety can
surprisingly perform poorly and how they can be assisted to give their full potential, (Brooker
pg. 88-95).
Background
Anxiety is an emotional feeling that brings about fear, negativity, restlessness and
uncertainty about the outcome of a performance. It makes a person lose trust in their own
abilities, it brings about memory loss, it results into lack of confidence and it also can lead to

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depression among others. Anxiety can cause headaches, sweat, loss of appetite, high blood
pressure and tension among others, (Goodger, Kate, and Sarah pg. 17-30).
Anxiety can be a motive a person or be a source of their downfall. It can be described as
the fear of the unknown. When it motivates a person to act it becomes positive but when it leads
a person to depression it becomes negative. It should be noted that anxiety mostly inclines people
to the negative part of it, (Kleine pg. 225-226).
The type of anxiety that lasts for a few hours or minutes is called the state anxiety. The
other one is called trait anxiety which forms part of a person’s character. In sports most people
experience the state anxiety and this often leads to underperformance. The pressure that comes
with expectations from fans and other audience can actually make them underperform due to
anxiety, (M, Sahin, and Neslihan pg. 128-135).
What is needed for this research to take place is a questionnaire which will be used to
get opinions from a group of athletes and another group of football players about their
experience when faced with anxiety during performance.
The importance of this research is be able to help find out ways that people in sports
can be assisted during and before performance to be able to produce their full potential. The
research will also give recommendations on what needs to be done in order to reduce the amount
of anxiety before and during the sports. This research will answer this question; what can be
done to reduce anxiety that causes underperformance in sports.

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Work Cited
Brooker, Elizabeth. "Anxiety in the sports arena." Transforming Performance Anxiety
Treatment (2018): 88-95.
Goodger, Kate, and Sarah Broadhead. "Managing the anxiety of performance." Sports
Psychiatry (2016): 17-30
Kleine, Dietmar. "Anxiety in sports and exercise." Anxiety Research 2.4 (1990): 225-226.
M, Sahin, and Neslihan LOK. "Evaluation of Mental Well-Being and General Health
Points of Active Sports." Journal of Depression and Anxiety s12 (2017): 128-135.