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Anxiety, confidence and psychological states in competition: what research has measured since 1986

Since 1986 research has asked whether more anxious archers shoot worse, and the answer has changed with the instrument: first personality questionnaires and the first heart rate recordings, then the state measured a few minutes before the start, saliva and interviews. This page follows those studies, with their figures and their limits.

Studies in the registry
56
On archers
54
Years
1986-2026

The question

Nearly everyone who shoots believes that anxiety costs points in competition. Research on archers has been working on it since 1986, and the answer has changed above all with the way it is measured: first personality questionnaires filled in well away from any competition and the first heart rate recordings, then scales of the current state collected a few minutes before the start, then saliva and interviews. This page follows those studies in chronological order. The practical advice is in the articles on mental training, on HRV and on the pre-shot routine; this page says where what we know comes from and how firm it is.

1986-1997: trait questionnaires see nothing

The first study is also one of the largest. Between 1982 and 1984 Landers and colleagues measured 188 US recurve archers, from beginners to Olympic medallists, and set sixty-two variables alongside their yearly average score. Trait, cognitive and somatic anxiety were not linked to the score, and no correlation went above 0.17. Self-confidence, by contrast, did move, at r = 0.32.

In Japan the question moved to the body. In 1987 an Olympic archer was recorded between the ends of the selection events and the US Open, and the study published in 1992 describes a shorter interval between beats and lower respiratory variability at the moments when he reported more tension. In 1994 five kyudo practitioners, who count as archers in this registry, had higher somatic anxiety in competition than in practice, high from the first end to the last, but neither anxiety nor heart rate was linked to their hit rate. In 1997, after altering the motivational state and arousal of 28 university archers before they shot, Kerr and colleagues found no significant difference in score.

2008-2015: the state of the moment, archer by archer

In 2008 Medeiros Filho and colleagues followed three of the country's best archers in their category for a whole season, with a grid filled in after every end and a heart rate monitor. The arousal zones that went with their best ends differed from archer to archer and from distance to distance, and with very low or very high reported arousal none of the three landed in the top third of their ends. In 2010 a Taiwanese group looked for anxiety in the brain: in the two seconds before release, twenty-four pre-elite archers with high and low cognitive anxiety showed the same frontal theta and alpha activity. The first result in favour of a link with the score came in 2015 from four Malaysian Olympic archers: r = -0.94 over two simulated competitions, falling to -0.69 when the third is added, in a journal with questionable editorial standards.

2016-2018: saliva

Then a Korean laboratory took the sample tube to the competition. In nineteen women university archers salivary alpha-amylase doubled in the minute before the start, from 43.8 to 87.4 units per millilitre; reported anxiety correlated with the score at -0.84 and amylase at -0.87, on scores that all fell between 341 and 355. In 2018 the same group added cortisol. The archers placed lower reported more anxiety at every point measured, but in the salivary markers the two groups were identical half an hour before the competition: the difference appeared three minutes before the start and after the finish. Same laboratory, similar samples: in the registry they count as a single line of evidence.

2020-2021: choking, stages, the coach

Among sixty-nine British competitive archers, 75.4% say they have at least once had a dramatic drop in performance in competition that was beyond their control, and among a hundred and fifteen licensed archers in Lazio an Italian study counts an average of three episodes in six months and links their frequency to worry about mistakes. At the 2011 Asian Championships fifty-seven national team archers had been questioned before each stage: cognitive anxiety went from 3.67 in the ranking round to 5.21 in the individual matches and stayed at 5.05 in the team event, and the women reported more of it than the men. Eight South Korean Olympians describe how they read their coach's behaviour while they shoot.

2022-2026: larger samples, opposite results

On confidence the firmest figure comes from sixty-one Chinese national squad archers, with a total effect of 0.57 on an index adding up the result of a competition and the technical grade already reached. On anxiety, forty-four Malaysian archers give r = -0.45 and two hundred and seven give r = -0.55, the largest sample the question has, published as a conference abstract. At the Brazilian championships forty archers were far more anxious on competition day than on the practice day, with waking cortisol rising by the same margin (d = 1.20), in a master's thesis.

Results pointing the other way arrive too. Eighteen Turkish elite archers give the same answers before a training session and before the national championships, cognitive anxiety 19.22 and 19.27, while their mean heart rate rises from 68 to 76 beats a minute. Eighty Indian juniors measured before a national championship show no link between anxiety and score. A wristband reading heart rate variability at the wrist tells high stress from low in 68-82% of cases, but in six archers and in a preprint; and in a simulated indoor competition ten Brazilian archers report tension that does not build, while fatigue climbs from 2.3 to 5.1.

What holds today

The link between anxiety and score remains contested. For years the split followed a readable line: the link appears when anxiety is measured shortly before a competition with a competitive anxiety scale, and it is absent with trait questionnaires, with mood on training days and with brain activity. In 2026 even this line starts to crack, because the Indian juniors measured with the same family of scales before a national championship show nothing. The Turkish study offers part of the explanation, since if reported anxiety does not change between training and competition it cannot show up in the score. Confidence goes with the score almost everywhere, but always as a correlation, and it stays reported.

Also reported, on few studies and nearly all of them small, are the rise in salivary markers, anxiety rising in the matches, worry outweighing somatic anxiety, choking as a common experience, its link with dwelling on mistakes and with somatic anxiety, tension that does not build over a competition, the mental toughness of medallists and the archers' account of the coach in competition. Contested are a competition day more tense than training, higher anxiety in women archers and heart rate variability as a measure of tension.

What remains open

Nearly everything comes from associations measured once. The studies that follow the same archer across several competitions, to see whether they shoot worse on the days they are more tense, cover four athletes at most. Also missing is a design that separates the anxiety that comes before a low score from the anxiety that follows it: in 2018 the lower-placed Korean archers were more anxious half an hour after the finish as well. The salivary measurements come from only two research groups, largely in Korean women. Several recent studies appear in journals with questionable editorial standards, and one, of 189 young Indonesian archers, publishes standardised coefficients that are mathematically impossible: in the registry its direction counts, not its size. Finally, choking episodes are counted from the memory of those who lived through them, and nobody has yet checked them against scores.

How we came to know it

  1. 1986OriginLanders et al. 1986 A Psychobiological Study of Archery PerformanceMeasures 188 US recurve archers, from beginners to Olympic medallists: trait, cognitive and somatic anxiety are not linked to the yearly average score, while self-confidence is (r = 0.32).
  2. 1991ExtensionZervas et al. 1991 Visuomotor Behavior Rehearsal in Archery Shooting PerformanceBefore an indoor competition nine Greek national team archers show more confidence and less somatic anxiety than nine non-selected archers, but the comparison is not tested.
  3. 1992MethodOhsuga et al. 1992 Development of an Apparatus for Monitoring Degree of Mental TensionRecords an Olympic archer's heartbeat between the ends of two competitions in 1987: with more reported tension the interval between beats is shorter and the respiratory component of variability lower.
  4. 1994ExtensionMiyamoto 1994 Changes of Heart Rate, Somatic Anxiety, and Performance of Japanese Archers during Practices and MatchesIn five kyudo practitioners somatic anxiety is higher in competition than in practice and stays high to the last end, but neither it nor heart rate is linked to the hit rate.
  5. 1997ExtensionKerr et al. 1997 Effects on Archery Performance of Manipulating Metamotivational State and Felt ArousalManipulates the motivational state and arousal of 28 university club archers before shooting: the score does not differ significantly across the four conditions.
  6. 2008MethodMedeiros Filho et al. 2008 Affective and Physiological States during Archery Competitions: Adopting and Enhancing the Probabilistic Methodology of Individual Affect-Related Performance Zones (IAPZs)Follows three top Brazilian archers for a season, end by end: the arousal zones of their best ends differ from archer to archer and from distance to distance.
  7. 2010ExtensionChen et al. 2010 Effects of pre-competition cognitive anxiety on attention and emotion during archery performanceLooks for anxiety in the brain: in the two seconds before release, 24 pre-elite archers with high and low cognitive anxiety show the same frontal theta and alpha activity.
  8. 2015ContradictionRoy et al. 2015 Questionable venue Archery: Emotion Intensity Regulation to Stay in the Zone during Olympic CompetitionFirst result in favour of a link with the score, in four Malaysian Olympic archers: r = -0.94 over two simulated competitions, -0.69 over three, in a journal with questionable editorial standards.
  9. 2016MethodLim 2016 Correlation Between Salivary Alpha-amylase, Anxiety, and Game Records in the Archery CompetitionBrings saliva into competition: in 19 Korean women university archers alpha-amylase doubles in the minute before the start, and anxiety and amylase correlate with the score at -0.84 and -0.87.
  10. 2018ReplicationLim 2018 Comparative analysis of the correlation between anxiety, salivary alpha amylase, cortisol levels, and athletes' performance in archery competitionsSame laboratory, 18 women archers, cortisol added: those placed lower have more amylase three minutes before and more cortisol after the end, while half an hour before the markers are the same.
  11. 2020ExtensionClarke et al. 2020 Personality Predictors of Yips and Choking SusceptibilityOpens the question of choking: 75.4% of 69 British competitive archers say they have at least once had a dramatic drop in performance beyond their control.
  12. 2020ExtensionKim et al. 2020 "Coach Really Knew What I Needed and Understood Me Well as a Person": Effective Communication Acts in Coach-Athlete Interactions among Korean Olympic ArchersEight South Korean Olympic team archers describe in interviews how they read their coach's behaviour in competition, and how a coach who watches the scores in silence seems worried and costs them confidence.
  13. 2021ExtensionAbdoshahi et al. 2021 Sex-based differences in cognitive anxiety and felt arousal of elite archers: a field studyAt the 2011 Asian Championships, 57 national team archers: cognitive anxiety rises from 3.67 in the ranking round to 5.21 in the matches and stays at 5.05 in the team event, higher in the women at every stage.
  14. 2021ExtensionDiotaiuti et al. 2021 An Exploratory Pilot Study on Choking Episodes in ArcheryIn 115 Italian competitive archers it counts an average of three choking episodes in six months and links their frequency to worry about mistakes, all from a single questionnaire.
  15. 2022ExtensionWang et al. 2022 Effect of Cognitive Reappraisal on Archery Performance of Elite Athletes: The Mediating Effects of Sport-Confidence and AttentionIn 61 Chinese national squad archers, sport confidence reported beforehand is linked to a performance index with a total effect of 0.57, the firmest figure on confidence.
  16. 2023ReplicationSouza 2023 A quantificação do estado emocional em ambiente competitivo: estudo de caso no tiro com arcoAt the Brazilian championships 40 archers are more anxious on competition day than on the practice day (d = 1.20), with waking cortisol rising by the same margin.
  17. 2023ReplicationShaari et al. 2023 Relationship Between Competitive Anxiety and Performance: A Study of the Archers at the National CompetitionIn 44 Malaysian recurve archers, anxiety measured before a 70 m event correlates with the score at -0.45, and worry is the highest component.
  18. 2025ContradictionAksüy et al. 2025 Elit Okçularda Antrenman ve yarışma Öncesinde Kalp Atım Hızı Değişkenliği ile Kaygı Düzeylerinin İncelenmesiEighteen Turkish elite archers report the same anxiety before a training session and before the national championships, while their mean heart rate rises from 68 to 76 beats a minute.
  19. 2025ReplicationRhyme et al. 2025 Exploring the relationship between competitive anxiety and archery performance: evidence from Malaysian athletesThe largest sample the question has, 207 Malaysian competitive archers: anxiety and score over 72 arrows correlate at -0.55, in a conference abstract.
  20. 2025MethodLiu et al. 2025 A Machine Learning-Based Multimodal Framework for Wearable Sensor-Based Archery Action Recognition and Stress EstimationA wristband reads heart rate variability at the wrist of six adolescent archers in competition and tells high stress from low in 68-82% of cases, in a preprint.
  21. 2026ContradictionBhutia et al. 2026 Questionable venue Exploring Gender Differences in Competitive Anxiety and Performance in Junior Recurve ArchersIn 80 Indian juniors measured before a national championship anxiety is not linked to the score, and boys and girls report the same anxiety, in a journal with questionable editorial standards.
  22. 2026ExtensionAmit 2026 Questionable venue Comparative Analysis of Mental Toughness among Medallist and Non-Medallist University Archery PlayersFirst comparison between medallists and non-medallists: in 40 Indian university archers the medallists report more mental toughness, after the medals were awarded and in a questionable venue.
  23. 2026ExtensionMafra et al. 2026 Efeitos do uso das redes sociais no desempenho do tiro com arcoIn a simulated indoor competition ten Brazilian archers report tension that does not build from start to finish, while fatigue climbs from 2.3 to 5.1.

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148 claims · 90% with evidence on archers

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Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Anxiety and confidence in archery competition since 1986. In Research. matteocampagna.com. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/competition-anxiety

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_enresearchcompetitionanxiety,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Anxiety and confidence in archery competition since 1986},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Research, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/competition-anxiety},
  note = {accessed 2026-10-16}
}