STRESSFUL SITUATIONS IN COMPETITIVE BASKETBALL

Self-reported stress was investigated in 84 male basketball players (m ean age: 23 years) regularly engaged in organised, competitive grade b asketball. The subjects were administered the Stressful Situations in Basketball Questionnaire (SSBQ), designed to measure perceived stress in competitive situations. The most stressful situations were found to be ''a slump in personal form'' and ''the team is losing and the oppo sition is holding up play''. The most commonly experienced category of stressor, according to the frequency of responses on the SSBQ, was Er rors in General Play (Scale 3). Other highly endorsed scales were Bein g Outplayed (Scale 1), Other Performance (Scale 6), and Game Tension ( Scale 4). Analyses by independent t tests indicated that while there w ere no differences according to experience, players who said that they trained more reported negative team performance situations as more st ressful than those who trained less. This finding appears to reflect a greater investment in the team's performance by players who reported that they trained for a longer period than their team-mates. Future st udies are required to determine whether similar categories of stress p ertain to other sports.