Effects of Anxiety on Perception and Performance of Basketball Free Throw

Abstract

The purpose of present study was to examine the effects of anxiety on the perception and performance of basketball free throw. Eighteen UBA Public-I level male basketball players were participated in this study. Players had been trained in basketball team for 7.6 ± 2.3 years, and aged 20.4 ± 1.2 years old. All participants shot 30 free throws under two conditions. In the no anxiety intervention (NAI) condition, each participant turned his back to the basket, and reported his heart rate, the anxiety score and the perceived minimal shoot-able hoop to an experimenter, and then performed a shot. In the anxiety intervention (AI) condition, an additional design was added, the missed shots were accumulated and participants were required to perform a set of aerobic training in the same minutes, and allowances were deducted according to the number of their missed shots. The results showed that there was a significant difference between two conditions on anxiety score and perceived minimal shoot-able hoop, but no difference between conditions in free throw score. Kendall's tau-b correlation test showed that in NAI condition, there was a negative correlation between anxiety score and free throw score, whereas in AI condition, there was a positive correlation between anxiety score and perceived minimal shoot-able hoop. This study concludes that the anxiety intervention elevated the state anxiety of the players and degraded their perceived ability, but did not affect their performance in free throw. When there was no anxiety intervention, the higher the level of anxiety the poorer the performance of their free throw. When there was anxiety intervention, the higher the level of anxiety the lower the ability of their perceived free throw.