THE EFFECTS OF IMAGERY-MANIPULATED APPRAISAL ON INTENSITY AND DIRECTION OF COMPETITIVE ANXIETY

This study attempted to manipulate an athletes facilitative or debilit ative appraisal (direction; Jones, 1995) of competitive anxiety throug h imagery-based interventions in order to study the effects on subsequ ent anxiety intensity (heart rate and CSAI-2) and direction (CSAI-2D: Jones gr Swain, 1992). In a within-subjects' design, 24 experienced so ccer players were relaxed via progressive relaxation audiotape and the n randomly underwent an imagery-based video- and audiotaped manipulati on of their appraisal of taking a hypothetical game-winning penalty ki ck under either a ''pressure'' or ''challenge'' appraisal emphasis. Th ere was no significant effect for heart mts. A repeated measures MANOV A for CSAI-2 and CSAI-2D scores revealed that for both intensity and d irection scores the challenge condition produced less cognitive anxiet y, less somatic anxiety, and more self-confidence (all p<.001) than th e pressure situation. This finding suggests that a challenge appraisal manipulation taught by applied sport psychologists might benefit athl etes' performance.