Perceived impact of anger and anxiety on sporting performance in rugby players

Abstract

Objective: The main purpose of the study was to extend the notion of directional perceptions beyond anxiety to anger in order to assess rugby players’ perception of the facilitative or debilitative effects of trait anger symptoms.

Design: A cross-sectional study design was employed using normative measures of anger and anxiety.

Method: The frequency and direction of symptoms of competitive trait anger were assessed in 197 Italian rugby players together with the intensity and direction of multidimensional trait anxiety.

Results: Findings revealed a general tendency of rugby players to experience a moderate frequency of anger symptoms and to interpret their symptoms as facilitative rather than debilitative. Regarding the direction of symptoms, cognitive anxiety was a significant predictor of anger, while self-confidence was a significant predictor of control of anger.

Conclusions: Support was provided for assessment of individual's interpretation of anger symptoms.

Introduction

A wealth of research in sport psychology has been devoted to the study of the debilitative or facilitative effects of competitive anxiety symptoms on performance. The multidimensional conceptualisation of competitive anxiety has contributed largely to the expansion of knowledge within the field (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990; see Burton, 1998; Woodman & Hardy, 2001). The multidimensional anxiety theory describes a series of two-dimensional relationships between cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence and performance. Cognitive anxiety (or worry) is viewed as the mental component of anxiety typified by negative expectations and cognitive concerns about oneself, the situation and potential consequences. Somatic anxiety is conceptualised as the physical component of anxiety that reflects the perception of one's physiological responses. Finally, self-confidence is conceived of as one's belief of being able to successfully perform a desired behaviour. The relationship with performance is predicted to be negative linear in the case of cognitive anxiety, quadratic (inverted-U shaped) for somatic anxiety, and positive linear for self-confidence.

To assess multidimensional anxiety, Martens et al. (1990) developed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). Although the original inventory was designed to gauge the level (i.e., intensity) of symptoms purported to indicate the presence of anxiety, further research has focussed on the directional perception of anxiety (Jones, Hanton, & Swain, 1994; Jones & Swain, 1992). Directional perception refers to whether athletes interpret their level of experienced anxiety symptoms as facilitative or debilitative towards performance (Jones, 1995; Jones & Hanton, 2001). The interest in the directional perception derived from limitations in the measurement of only the intensity of competitive anxiety symptoms (Jones, 1995). As a result, a growing number of authors have advocated the need to address additional dimensions of the stress response (see Mellalieu, Hanton, & Fletcher, 2006). Traditionally, a high level of anxiety symptoms was thought to be debilitative and thus would be predictive of a negative influence on performance. However, research results have challenged the assumption that anxiety is always detrimental to athletic performance (Hanin (1980), Hanin (1986); Raglin, 1992; Raglin & Hanin, 2000).

The introduction of the modified version of the CSAI-2 (Jones & Swain, 1992) enabled researchers to measure both the intensity and the direction of anxiety symptoms. In some studies, anxiety direction scores were found to be better predictors of the performance level of athletes than anxiety intensity scores. Specifically, findings indicated that good performance was associated with a more facilitative and less debilitative perception of anxiety than poor performance (Jones, Swain, & Hardy, 1993), and that elite athletes interpreted their anxiety symptoms as being more facilitative than those of non-elite performers (Jones et al., 1994). Yet, Robazza and Bortoli (2003) found that both the intensity and the direction of the multidimensional anxiety response (i.e., symptoms of cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety) differentiated athletes across a range of individual or team sports as a function of the competitive standard. Elite athletes reported lower levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety symptoms, and experienced those symptoms as less debilitative than those of non-elite athletes. They also exhibited higher self-confidence, which they perceived to be more facilitative. In general, the importance of measuring the directional interpretation of anxiety symptoms in addition to intensity levels has received strong support in sport psychology studies examining the anxiety trait-state relationship (Hanton, Mellalieu, & Hall, 2002) and variables such as skill level (Jones et al., 1994), experience (Mellalieu, Hanton, & O’Brien, 2004), performance (Jones et al., 1993), competitiveness (Jones & Swain, 1992), anxiety antecedents (Hanton & Jones, 1997), psychological skills (Fletcher & Hanton, 2001), sport type (Hanton, Jones, & Mullen, 2000), hardiness (Hanton, Evans, & Neil, 2003), and coping strategies (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 2000).

Besides the intensity and direction of anxiety, the frequency with which competitors experience anxiety symptoms (i.e., the amount of time an athlete's mind is occupied by thoughts and symptoms about the forthcoming event) has generated research interest, although to a lesser extent. For example, Swain and Jones (1993) employed a modified version of the CSAI-2 to investigate both intensity and frequency dimensions of anxiety across four occasions, during a 2-day period leading up to a competition. For each item of the questionnaire, participants were asked how frequently they experienced a particular thought or feeling at that stage. Ratings were on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 7 (“all of the time”). Findings showed that cognitive anxiety symptoms were experienced progressively more frequently as the competition approached, while intensity of symptoms remained essentially stable. More recently, Hanton, Thomas, and Maynard (2004) used the modified CSAI-2 to assess intensity, direction and frequency dimensions across five pre-competition times (1 week, 2 days, 1 day, 2 h, and 30 min). A different pre-competition pattern was observed for the three dimensions, thus warranting their assessment. In general, results were in accordance with the view of emotional researchers (Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons, 1985; Kardum, 1999), who observed that, although related, intensity and frequency are separate dimensions of the emotional response (see Hanin (1997), Hanin (2000), for a holistic description of dimensions of emotions and psycho-bio-social states related to performance).

On a parallel with the study of anxiety and self-confidence, researchers have begun to expand their interest in a wide range of emotions related to performance (Cerin, 2003; Cerin, Szabo, Hunt, & Williams, 2000; Gould, Greenleaf, & Krane, 2002; Hanin (1993), Hanin (1997), Hanin (2000)). In predicting athletic performance and for a better understanding of the athlete's experience, looking just at the effects of anxiety is not enough. There is, instead, a need to examine a variety of emotional states evident in the sport environment (Gould & Udry, 1994; Hanin & Syrjä (1995), Hanin & Syrjä (1996); Jones, 1995; Vallerand & Blanchard, 2000). Of the many emotions, anger is frequently experienced and expressed as aggressive behaviour in the athletic domain, particularly in combative and contact sports such as ice-hockey, American football, boxing and karate (Maxwell, 2004; Ruiz & Hanin (2004a), Ruiz & Hanin (2004b); Terry & Slade, 1995). In proposing a reformulation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis, Berkowitz (1989) argued that the experience of provocation, frustration or aversive stimuli tends to elicit negative affects that the individual interprets as anger leading to aggression. Frustration, although it does not necessarily result in aggressive behaviour, creates a readiness for aggression through anger, hostility, or other negative feelings. In the attempt to dissipate conceptual ambiguity surrounding the constructs of anger, hostility, and aggression, Spielberger (1991) defined anger as an emotional state typified by feelings varying in intensity from mild annoyance to fury and rage, with corresponding changes of arousal in the autonomic nervous system. Hostility was described as a complex set of attitudes that motivates aggressive behaviours directed towards destroying objects or injuring another human being. Hostile aggression usually involves angry feelings on the part of the aggressor. Anger has the potential to strongly affect performance by either disrupting or enhancing the focus of attention, information-processing and decision-making, execution, and control of action (Jones, 2003). For example, dysfunctional anger can be aroused in a rugby player in consequence of an opponent's illegitimate and intentional act. The offended player may then divert the focus of his attention from the task at hand to the offender for retaliation with the purpose of inflicting harm. Anger is thus dysfunctional because it results in wasted energy, decreased achievements, and illegitimate acts of violence. Alternatively, the player may use his anger instrumentally to direct more energy towards the legitimate, functional, and assertive behaviours of tackling and shoving in order to block the opponent's attack. Hence, anger can disorganise and impair performance or, conversely, energise and organise behaviour towards the attainment of a task.

Given the relevance of anger in the athletic context, it is regrettable that specific instruments for assessing anger in sport are lacking. Indeed, in a review of anger, aggressive behaviour, and performance, Isberg (2000) noted that almost all sport-specific measures relate to aggressive behaviour rather than to the emotion of anger. Yet, in a series of studies assessing karate athletes, Ruiz (2004) employed Spielberger's (1991) State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) to investigate anger within the theoretical framework of the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF; Hanin, 2000). The STAXI is intended to measure the experience of a state of anger, the disposition towards anger as a personality trait, the expression of anger as aggressive verbal or physical behaviour, the suppression of angry feelings by directing them inward, and the control of anger. State anger is assessed on an intensity scale ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 4 (“very much”), while trait anger and anger expression, suppression and control are assessed on a frequency scale ranging from 1 (“almost never”) to 4 (“almost always”). Persons who experience a high frequency of trait anger symptoms tend to perceive a wide range of situations as anger provoking, and to react to annoying or frustrating conditions with a high intensity of state anger. In line with the IZOF model predictions, findings demonstrated large inter-individual variability in optimal and dysfunctional experience of anger symptoms.

Ruiz & Hanin (2004a), Ruiz & Hanin (2004b) and Ruiz (2004) also examined the content of anger states using a variety of techniques, including metaphoric descriptions, emotion profiling and open-ended questions. The perceived functional impact of anger on performance indicated that athletes can use anger in preparation for or during competition. The facilitative effects of anger were related to positive feelings of increased motivation, confidence and powerful skill execution, whereas the debilitative effects were associated with tension, lack of confidence and perceived inability to cope with the situation. According to the IZOF constructs of energy mobilisation and utilisation (Hanin, 2000), the experience of the facilitative or debilitative impact of anger, anxiety or other negatively toned emotions would depend on an individual's perception of the energising or de-energising effects of these emotions, and the correct use or misuse of these energies. Hanin (2004) has recently proposed the concept of meta-emotion, or meta-experience, to account for knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and preferences for (or rejection of) an emotion that athletes develop through a range of successful and less than successful performances. For instance, an athlete who notices that anger symptoms are usually associated with feeling powerful, vigorous and alert can interpret this state as an indicator of readiness to accomplish a task. Meta-experiences are also influenced by culturally determined beliefs of performers regarding the expected effect of specific emotions on performance and the rules of expression or suppression of emotions in a particular context.

Like the IZOF model, the directional perception of anxiety framework endorses individual differences in the interpretation of emotional symptoms. Jones (1995) proposed a model of debilitative and facilitative competitive anxiety based on Carver and Scheier's (1988) control-process perspective on stress and coping. The model attempts to explain how the symptoms associated with anxiety (and emotions) experienced by performers in relation to stressors of competition may be viewed in a facilitating or debilitating manner towards performance. Anxiety would be facilitative as long as the individual's expectancies of being able to cope and of goal attainment remained favourable. If expectancies became unfavourable, anxiety would be perceived as debilitative. Thus, directional interpretations of anxiety symptoms (i.e., facilitative or debilitative) would depend on the performer's cognitive appraisal of being able to control the environment and the self. The direction of anger, however, has not been the focus of investigation of directional proponents who so far have been involved in the study of anxiety (see Mellalieu et al., 2006) and a range of feeling states (Jones & Hanton, 2001; Mellalieu, Hanton, & Jones, 2003).

Extending Jones’ (1995) model from competitive anxiety to anger, it could be predicted that perceived ability to handle anger and exert control in a competitive situation would enable the symptoms of anger to be perceived as beneficial or advantageous to performance, whereas low mastery expectancies would result in the perception of harm. As Skinner and Brewer (2004) noted in reference to anxiety, this argument is consistent with the view of perceptions of emotion as a type of coping response (Raffety, Smith, & Ptacek, 1997), and empirical findings showing that higher levels of self-confidence in athletes (i.e., the ability to control the self and the environment) have been associated with increasingly beneficial perceptions (Jones et al., 1993). Hanton and Connaughton (2002) have suggested that self-confidence may facilitate coping resources to deal with competitive anxiety (e.g., rationalisation of thoughts and feelings) and maintain control during competition. Self-confidence could also be hypothesised to moderate the interpretation of competitive anger symptoms, where high confidence should protect against debilitative interpretations.

The present study adopted the directional perception of anxiety framework to assess the individual's perceived impact of the frequency of anger symptoms. Therefore, we supplemented the STAXI customary rating scale with the direction scale that Jones and Swain (1992) added to the CSAI-2 to measure the direction of intensity of anxiety symptoms. The first objective was to assess the individual's perception of the facilitative or debilitative effects of trait anger on sporting performance, thus extending the notion of directional interpretation beyond anxiety to anger. Rugby players were involved in the study because feelings related to anger were deemed important in playing a high-impact collision sport. A rugby game, indeed, is typified by intense physical contact and rough assaults against the players of the opposite team. Coaches and players often place emphasis on anger and aggressive behaviour, and on the need to properly harness anger in order to outperform the opponent (D’Urso, Petrosso, & Robazza, 2002). Athletes might tend to appraise anger feelings as facilitative because these would be deemed helpful in increasing effort, focussing concentration on the task, and achieving goals. Thus, it was hypothesised that rugby players would feel personal control of angry feelings and, therefore, would perceive anger as exerting a more beneficial than detrimental effect on performance.

The second goal of the study was to assess whether the STAXI direction scores would enable a differentiation of athletes on the basis of their competitive standard as was consistently shown in research concerning the CSAI-2 direction scores (Jones & Hanton, 2001; Mellalieu et al., 2004; Robazza & Bortoli, 2003). As previously discussed, most studies have observed that although the intensity of anxiety symptoms experienced do not differentiate between elite and non-elite performers, elite athletes report significantly more facilitative interpretations of symptoms than their non-elite counterparts (Jones et al., 1994; Perry & Williams, 1998). Mellalieu et al. (2004) also found more facilitative perceptions of symptoms in experienced performers than among their less experienced peers. Elite or experienced performers are expected to undergo natural learning experiences by which they acquire cognitive skills and strategies that enable them to attain control over the environment and the self (Hanton & Jones, 1999). According to Jones’ (1995) control model of facilitative and debilitative anxiety, athletes who perceive themselves as being in control and able to achieve their goals are predicted to interpret their symptoms as facilitative. Extending Jones’ notion of control from anxiety to anger, we suggested that high-level rugby players were able to exert more control over competitive anger than low-level players and, consequently, they would report more facilitative interpretation of anger symptoms. No specific predictions were made regarding anger frequency relying on anxiety findings, because trait anxiety investigations have provided equivocal results. In two studies, for example, elite athletes were found to report lower anxiety and higher self-confidence than non-elite participants (Robazza & Bortoli, 2003), or to exhibit the same level of anxiety and self-confidence (Jones & Swain, 1995). However, the two studies were consistent in their directional perception results, in that elite performers experienced more facilitative effects of symptoms than non-elite performers.

The third purpose of the investigation was to verify to what extent the intensity and direction of competitive trait anxiety and self-confidence, assessed through a trait version of the CSAI-2 (Martens et al., 1990) would explain the STAXI direction scores. In a sample of high-standard swimmers, Jones and Hanton (2001) found that those performers who experienced pre-competitive symptoms to be facilitative on the direction scale of the CSAI-2 identified more positive and fewer negative feeling states than those swimmers who perceived symptoms to be debilitative. Moreover, facilitated performers selected the “confident” feeling state label more frequently. In contrast, those swimmers who perceived symptoms to be debilitative identified more negative and less positive states. The authors suggested that predispositions to experience competitive anxiety symptoms as facilitative to performance may be predictive of the direction and type of pre-competitive affective states. To test this assumption, Mellalieu et al. (2003) examined the differences in affective states of competitive athletes who reported facilitating or debilitating interpretations of pre-competitive anxiety. Those athletes who perceived anxiety as facilitative (facilitators) reported greater facilitative affective experiences than those who experienced anxiety as debilitative (debilitators). Interestingly, several facilitators labelled aggressive feelings and anger as helpful with regard to both preparation for and actual competitive performance.

From these findings, it was hypothesised that anxiety direction scores would be associated with STAXI direction scores more than anxiety intensity scores. This hypothesis is also consistent with research results showing that anger and anxiety tend to be highly inter-correlated (Diener & Emmons, 1985; Watson & Tellegen, 1985; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), and that they can be associated with either facilitated or debilitated performance (Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000). Based on this evidence, Lane and Terry (2000) developed a model of mood in which both tension and anger are expected to show a curvilinear link with performance in the absence of a depressed mood. They explained the curvilinear relationship according to the cue utilisation theory (Easterbrook, 1959), suggesting that the augmented arousal closely related to tension or anger causes a narrowing of the attentional field. A narrow focus of attention facilitates detection of relevant cues and exclusion of task-irrelevant cues. If arousal heightens above an optimum level for the task or the individual, task-relevant cues are also excluded and performance declines as a consequence. The similarity of the underlying mechanisms purported to explain the links between anxiety/anger and performance should be reflected in a positive association between anxiety and anger direction scores. Furthermore, self-confidence was expected to moderate the debilitating effects of anger and to exert a protective effect in the control of symptoms. As previously discussed, performers who perceive themselves as being able to cope with their emotional symptoms and achieve their goals can interpret their symptoms as being facilitative of performance.