Accuracy in penalty kicks declines in reinvesters under high pressure

Jasmin Pourhassan
Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University (2020)

Abstract

BACKGROUND. Psychological pressure and competitive concerns are known triggers for state anxiety. Attention control (ATC) runs towards a threat oriented bottom-up system under pressure and can lead to significant decline in accuracy performance in farm aiming skills. A decrease in accuracy performance results in more centralised penalty kicks and are likely to be saved by goal keepers in soccer games. Players with greater MSRS (Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale) scores seem to be more affected by pressure and tend to cope with an internal attention focus and conscious execution of automated motor-skills. Well-learned skills better run of with an external attention focus and will regress when consciously accessed.

METHOD. 30 soccer players were self-assessed on a MSRS questionnaire and assigned to low- and high-reinvesters groups. Athletes performed 10 penalty kicks under low- and high pressure manipulations. Converted shot were added for overall performance, accuracy was measured using a mobile eye tracking system paired with a laptop, using “Eye- Vision” recording software and measured the distance away from the lateral pole of the goal. Anxiety was measured using cognitive anxiety section of the Mental Readiness Form-3 (MRF-3). Data was analysed using a 2 x 2 repeated measure ANOVA with pairwise comparison of the results.

RESULTS. A significant main effect was found in state anxiety within groups F(1,28) = 155.79, p < 0.01. Between measurement did not show any significant effects F(1,28) = 3.14, p = 0.09, both groups raised at almost same rate. Significant main effects occur in accuracy performance within groups F(1,28) = 6.68, p = 0.02 with significant interaction F(1,28) = 7.34, p= 0.01 between accuracy and groups as well (Fig. 1). There were no significant main effects in scoring performance within groups F(1,28) = 3.51, p = 0.07, nor between groups F(1,28) = 0.17, p = 0.69.

CONCLUSION. Competitive concerns can be confirmed as a stressor for state anxiety. In conclusion the study can confirm significant decline in accuracy performance under pressure in high-reinvesters compared to low-reinvesters. The significant decrease in accuracy performance in high-reinvesters did not lead to expected drops of conversion rate.

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Figure 1:

Accuracy differences (cm) under 1) low pressure and 2) high pressure condition