Differences in the Level of Anxiety Among Male Athletes in Adolescence

The study of anxiety, its antecedents, its relations with other psychological variables, and its consequences has a long history of theoretical and empirical attention within sport psychology. Anxiety is a psychological occurrence which affects the overall behavior of an individual, and the success in sport all along. The main objective of the study is oriented towards determining the distinctions in the level of anxiety among male athletes from different sports during adolescence. A total of 75 subjects, male athletes aged 11 – 24 years old, were included in this research. The overall sample has been divided into three groups with 25 subjects per each group, respectively 25 subject athletes at the age of 11-14 years (early adolescence), 25 subject at the age of 15-19 years (mid adolescence) and 25 subject at the age of 20-24 years (late adolescence/young adulthood). In order to assess the anxiety as a psychological feature, the following tests were utilized: TAI (the Talt Anxiety Inventary) and CSAI-2 (Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2). Statistical processing was performed with the Statistical Program for Social Sciences, SPSS15. Based on the statistical analysis of the data it can be concluded that there is statistically significant differences in the level of anxiety in TAI variable among tested subjects between males of different group ages during adolescence. Middle