ABSTRACT
A fundamental tenet of Spielberger's Trait-State Anxiety Theory is that persons high in trait anxiety (T-Anxiety) perceive stressful situations in which they are evaluated as more threatening, and respond to such situations with greater elevations in state anxiety (S-Anxiety), than persons low in T-Anxiety. Members of the Czechoslovakian National Female Handball Team (N = 24) completed the T-Anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) two days before a practice game. They also responded to the STAI S-Anxiety scale and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory (CSAI) immediately before and after the practice game and a competitive game that was played 1 week later. The Cognitive Interference Questionnaire (CIQ) was administered immediately following both games. The Anxiety scales all correlated negatively with game performance, but only the CSAI correlations were significant. Although the high T-Anxiety players showed a greater increase in S-Anxiety and task-irrelevant cognitive responses than those low in T-Anxiety, this predicted interaction effect was significant only for irrelevant cognitions in the competitive game. The findings were discussed in the context of theories of anxiety, motivation, and action control.
