INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN SPORTS COMPETITIVE ANXIETY, SELF ESTEEM AND SPORTS PERFORMANCE OF YOUNG ATHLETES

Abstract

For long, anxiety experiences have remained the focus of sport psychologists’ research interest as anxiety can directly affect quality of the performance of athletes. A cross section design was used to study competitive anxiety, self esteem and  performance of young athletes in Lahore. In total, 93 young athletes were studied from 2 public and three private universities in Lahore. The sample included men (n= 61) and women (n= 32) who regularly took part in various sports and even participated in competitive events. The sample was contacted during their free hours after their training sessions and classes. All participants filled demographic form designed for the study followed by Sports competitive anxiety test, sports performance checklist and Rosenberger’s self esteem scale. The findings reveal that competitive sports anxiety shared significant inverse correlation with both self esteem (p<0.01) and sports performance (p<0.01). Whereas, self esteem and sports performance shared significant positive correlation (p<0.01). Competitive sports anxiety, self esteem and sports performance shared significant correlation with age and income. Significant gender differences were also observed in study variables. The strong interconnection between sports competitive anxiety, self esteem and performance of athletes must be taken into consideration in order to improving the performance of athletes.