Jerome, G. J., & Williams, J. M. (2000). Intensity and interpretation of competitive state anxiety: Relationship to performance and repressive coping. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 12, 236-250.

Three topics were examined.

• The predictions of multidimensional anxiety theory,
• the effect of interpreting anxiety responses as having a debilitative or facilitative effect on performance, and
• the influence of a repressive coping style on the relationship of anxiety to performance.

Bowlers (M = 90; F = 53) represented recreational league participants (N = 95) and semi-professionals (N = 48). The Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) and the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) were used to measure anxiety

Several significant, but trivial relationships were revealed. Cognitive anxiety had an inverted-U relationship with performance, accounting for 4.1% of the relationship. The somatic direction subscale explained 3% of performance variance. Removing Ss with a repressive coping style produced a stronger and different anxiety-performance relationship. Cognitive intensity supported an inverted-U relationship and accounted for 12.6% of variance. Somatic intensity correlated negatively and accounted for 6.1% of performance variance.

These findings did not support multi-dimensional anxiety theory and offered marginal support for inclusion of directional interpretation scales.

Implication. In bowlers, anxiety is a trivial factor that has little to do with performance.

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