Competitive trait anxiety, success-failure and sex as determinants of motor performance

Two experiments determined the effects of competitive trait anxiety, success-failure, and sex on the performance of 10- to 12 yr.-old children competing on a complex motor maze. Competitive trait anxiety was assessed by the Sport Competition Anxiety Test and success-failure was induced by giving bogus win-loss feedback. High and low competitive trait-anxiety children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: winning 80%, 50% or 20% of 20 contests. The average completion time and the variability of times within each of two blocks of 10 contests were the two performance measures. State-anxiety was assessed with Spielberger's State Anxiety Inventory for Children as an indicant of arousal prior to and during competition. The findings of Exp. 1 yielded no significant performance differences. In Exp. 2 a significant interaction of competitive trait anxiety X success-failure X sex for performance time and variability was obtained. This interaction was largely attributed to sex differences.