Task-irrelevant cognitions manifested by athletes engaged in competition may interfere with the course of an ongoing contest. The self-confrontation method was applied to 18 table tennis players ranging from intermediate to expert level. By means of this method, various types of interfering cognitions present during competition were registered and then tentatively assigned to content-related categories. Based on the content of these cognitions, a sports-specific questionnaire was developed and administered to 149 table tennis players of various levels. Employing principal component analysis, three components could be interpreted: (a) worry, self-doubt, and distraction, (b) emotional tension, and (c) helplessness and irrelevant cognitions. Based on this analysis, a Cognitive Interference Test—Table Tennis (CIT-TT) was constructed. This test shows satisfactory psychometric and statistical characteristics. Finally, the results of two preliminary validation studies on this inventory are reported.
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Krohne et al. (2000) studied this question.
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