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Pre-competitive feeling states and directional anxiety interpretations

In this study, we assessed differences in feeling states indicated by performers who reported being facilitated or debilitated by symptoms associated with competitive anxiety before competition. A sample of high-standard swimmers ( n = 190) completed a modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2, including both intensity and direction subscales, and an exploratory checklist of feeling state labels, which comprised positive and negative feeling state labels. Our findings supported the general hypothesis that ‘facilitators’ report significantly more positive feelings than ‘debilitators’, who report significantly more negative feelings. Descriptive frequency counts of the largest percentage differences between ‘facilitators’ and ‘debilitators’ resulted in the selection of the ‘confident’ feeling state label on the positive subscales, with it being identified most frequently by the ‘facilitators’. Furthermore, of the negative feelings, the groups indicated the label ‘anxious’ most frequently. This study has extended previous research into the notion of positive and negative anxiety and has revealed individual differences in the combination of feeling states experienced by performers during competition.