Recent developments in competitive anxiety direction and competition stress research

Abstract

The area of competitive anxiety continues to be extensively researched with considerable attention focused on the notion of ‘direction’. The purpose of this review is to demonstrate how the study of direction has advanced our understanding of the competitive anxiety response through providing an overview of the existing research, and emphasizing why sport psychologists investigated the underlying mechanisms of performers’ facilitative interpretations of anxiety symptoms. Finally, we discuss how direction has been integrated into Lazarus (1990 Lazarus, R.S. 1990. Theory-based stress measurement. Psychological Inquiry, 1: 3–13. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 1991a Lazarus, R.S. 1991a. Emotion and adaptation, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]); Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) transactional perspective of stress, and how this may be used to inform future research into the broader area of competition stress.