Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS)

1. Abstract

The Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) is a multidimensional psychometric self-report instrument developed to assess individual differences in competitive trait anxiety among athletes. Engineered by Ronald E. Smith, Frank L. Smoll, and Robert W. Schutz in 1990, the scale emerged to resolve persistent theoretical and psychometric limitations inherent in unidimensional conceptualizations of athletic anxiety, such as the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT). Grounded in multidimensional anxiety theory, the original SAS comprises 21 items operationalized across three correlated yet distinct subcomponents: Somatic Trait Anxiety (9 items), Worry (7 items), and Concentration Disruption (5 items). Items are rated on a four-point Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (Not At All) to 4 (Very Much So), yielding distinct subscale scores and an aggregate composite score.

Extensive psychometric investigations have supported the scale’s factorial validity, construct validity, and internal consistency across diverse athletic cohorts, including youth, collegiate, elite amateur, and professional competitors. Reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients demonstrate strong internal consistency, consistently ranging from .71 to .92 across the subscales. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have corroborated its tripartite structural architecture, distinguishing physiological manifestations of autonomic hyperarousal from cognitive concerns about performance execution and attentional lapses during competitive events. The SAS has significantly advanced empirical inquiry into athletic performance under psychological pressure, coach-athlete dynamics, choking vulnerability, and the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral stress management interventions in sport psychology.

2. Keywords

Sport Anxiety Scale, competitive trait anxiety, multidimensional anxiety theory, somatic anxiety, worry, concentration disruption, athletic performance, psychometrics, sport psychology, factor analysis

3. Authors

The Sport Anxiety Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team specializing in clinical psychology, developmental sport psychology, and psychometrics:

• Ronald E. Smith, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology and former Director of Clinical Psychology Training at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States. Dr. Smith is renowned for his pioneering contributions to cognitive-affective stress models, youth sports psychology, athletic burnout, and performance anxiety.
• Frank L. Smoll, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States. Dr. Smoll’s scholarly focus centers on youth sports coaching behaviors, motivational climates, parent-child-coach dynamics, and intervention programs for reducing athletic stress.
• Robert W. Schutz, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Measurement and Evaluation in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Schutz brought extensive expertise in multivariate statistical modeling, psychometrics, and quantitative research methodology in human kinetics and sport sciences.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) is to measure competitive trait anxiety as a multidimensional construct tailored specifically to athletic environments. Competitive trait anxiety represents an athlete’s relatively stable predisposition to perceive competitive situations as threatening and to respond to these situations with varying degrees of state anxiety. Prior to the introduction of the SAS, applied sport researchers and practitioners relied predominantly on unidimensional instruments, notably Martens’ (1977) Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT). While the SCAT effectively captured general autonomic reactivity, it failed to differentiate between the physiological reactions and the diverse cognitive manifestations that characterize performance distress.

Research across cognitive, clinical, and sport psychology demonstrates that anxiety is not a monolithic affective state. Instead, it operates across distinct psychological, neurobiological, and behavioral channels. A multidimensional assessment is necessary because the various components of anxiety influence athletic performance through divergent mechanisms. Physiological autonomic arousal may elevate heart rate, muscle tension, and respiratory rate, which can either debilitate or paradoxically facilitate performance depending on the motoric demands of the task and the athlete’s cognitive appraisals. Conversely, cognitive anxiety—characterized by repetitive worries about prospective failure and disruption in task-relevant attentional focus—exerts a consistently debilitating effect on performance by consuming central executive working memory resources and impairing cue utilization.

The SAS serves both empirical and applied purposes:

• Applied Clinical and Performance Diagnostic Assessment: Sport psychologists and mental performance consultants utilize the SAS to construct individualized cognitive-affective profiles for athletes. By isolating whether an athlete experiences predominantly somatic arousal, cognitive worry, or disruptive attentional lapses, practitioners can prescribe tailored interventions. For instance, athletes scoring high on somatic anxiety benefit from biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, or autogenic training, whereas those characterized by high worry or concentration disruption require cognitive restructuring, mindfulness training, pre-performance routines, or attentional control strategies.
• Etiological and Mechanistic Research: In research contexts, the SAS enables investigators to isolate the unique predictive validity of somatic and cognitive anxiety dimensions on athletic achievement, motor skill execution under high stakes, vulnerability to sports injuries, and susceptibility to the “choking” phenomenon.
• Evaluation of Interventions: The instrument facilitates the empirical evaluation of psychological skills training (PST) programs, coach-effectiveness training modules (such as the Mastery Approach to Coaching), and stress inoculation protocols by quantifying differential pre-to-post changes across specific anxiety dimensions.

5. Psychological Construct

The Sport Anxiety Scale operationalizes competitive trait anxiety as a hierarchical multidimensional construct consisting of three primary factors reflecting distinct response systems:

Somatic Trait Anxiety

The Somatic Trait Anxiety dimension measures the athlete’s tendency to perceive and experience heightened physiological and autonomic reactivity before and during competitive events. Rooted in the activation of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (the sympathoadrenal axis), this factor encompasses somatic sensations such as cardiovascular acceleration, muscular tension, visceral distress, tremors, and hyperarousal. In the SAS, this dimension is operationalized through 9 specific items evaluating perceptions of bodily tightness (“My body feels tight”), gastrointestinal distress (“My stomach gets upset before or during a competitive event”; “I feel my stomach sinking”), elevated heart rate (“My heart races”; “My heart pounds before competition”), neuromuscular tremors (“I sometimes find myself trembling before or during a competitive event”), and generalized nervous tension (“I feel nervous”; “My body feels tense”; “I feel tense in my stomach”).

Worry (Cognitive Trait Anxiety)

The Worry subscale reflects the cognitive-evaluative component of anxiety, defined as negative expectations, intrusive self-doubts, and anticipatory concerns regarding performance inadequacy, failure, and unfavorable social evaluation. Within the framework of self-efficacy theory and cognitive appraisal models, worry consumes processing capacity and directs an athlete’s focus toward potential catastrophe rather than task-oriented execution. The SAS evaluates worry via 7 items measuring catastrophic expectations about choking under pressure (“I’m concerned about choking under pressure”), self-doubt and underperformance (“I have self-doubts”; “I am concerned that I may not do as well in competition as I could”; “I’m concerned about performing poorly”), performance goal failure (“I’m worried about reaching my goal”), social evaluation concerns (“I’m concerned that others will be disappointed in my performance”), and concentration interference driven by fear of failure (“Thoughts of doing poorly interfere with my concentration during”).

Concentration Disruption

The Concentration Disruption subscale assesses the disruptive intrusion of anxiety onto attentional systems, characterized by the inability to maintain focus on task-relevant environmental cues, an involuntary wandering of the mind, and lapses in selective attention during competition. Drawing from Kahneman’s capacity model of attention and processing efficiency frameworks, high levels of competitive distress often deplete attentional control, leading to distractibility and internal cognitive noise. The SAS captures this dimension using 5 items evaluating intrusive off-task thoughts (“During competition, I find myself thinking about unrelated things”), attentional detachment (“My mind wanders during sport competition”; “While performing, I often do not pay attention to what’s going on”), concentration lapses attributed to nervousness (“I have lapses of concentration during competition because of nervousness”), and anticipatory concern over attentional failure (“I’m concerned I won’t be able to concentrate”).

6. Theoretical Framework

The development of the Sport Anxiety Scale is anchored in the theoretical convergence of clinical cognitive-behavioral paradigms and contemporary models of athletic stress. The foundational architecture derives from the multidimensional anxiety framework conceptualized by Davidson and Schwartz (1976), who hypothesized that anxiety cannot be treated as a single unitary drive. Instead, they demonstrated that anxiety comprises partially independent cognitive and somatic subcomponents driven by different neural and psychophysiological substrates: the cognitive system governed by cortical and frontal verbal-symbolic processes, and the somatic system mediated by autonomic, neuroendocrine, and musculoskeletal pathways.

Smith, Smoll, and Schutz (1990) integrated this dual-process formulation into Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, and Smith’s (1990) multidimensional competitive anxiety model, expanding it further. While Martens and colleagues focused primarily on state anxiety—formalized in the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)—Smith and colleagues identified an acute need for a corresponding trait measure that reflected chronic, stable predispositions to competitive anxiety. Crucially, factor-analytic evidence gathered during the development of the SAS revealed that cognitive trait anxiety was not unidimensional; rather, it partitioned distinctly into two separate cognitive factors: Worry (evaluative performance concerns) and Concentration Disruption (attentional and working memory deficits).

This tripartite structure aligns closely with modern cognitive models of human performance, such as Eysenck and Calvo’s (1992) Processing Efficiency Theory and Eysenck, Derakhtshan, Santos, and Calvo’s (2007) Attentional Control Theory. These theories posit that anxiety impairs the central executive system of working memory—specifically the shifting and inhibition functions. Worry acts as a secondary task that consumes limited verbal working memory resources, while concentration disruption directly manifests as the breakdown of attentional inhibition, allowing task-irrelevant threat stimuli (both internal and external) to hijack processing priority. Consequently, the SAS embodies an integrative theoretical model where physiological arousal (somatic), cognitive interference (worry), and attentional control breakdowns (concentration disruption) interact to predict performance dynamics.

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Sport Anxiety Scale have been established across numerous empirical investigations spanning multiple decades:

Construct and Factorial Validity

In the seminal psychometric investigation by Smith, Smoll, and Schutz (1990), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses performed across athletic samples—comprising high school varsity, intercollegiate, and adult competitive athletes (total N > 1,200)—confirmed that the hypothesized three-factor model yielded a superior fit to empirical data compared to alternative unidimensional or two-factor models. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that while the three subscales share moderate intercorrelations (typically ranging between r = .36 and r = .58), they preserve distinct latent identities, confirming multidimensionality without redundant collinearity.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was demonstrated through robust correlations with preexisting measures of anxiety and neuroticism. Somatic Trait Anxiety correlated strongly with Martens’ Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT; r = .64 to .72) and the Somatic subscale of the CSAI-2 (r = .55 to .68). The Worry subscale exhibited substantial positive correlations with general trait anxiety as measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI Trait; r = .52 to .61) and generalized fear of failure scales. Concentration Disruption correlated strongly with general cognitive interference scales, such as Sarason’s Cognitive Interference Questionnaire (CIQ; r = .48 to .59), demonstrating that the subscales capture their intended psychological constructs.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established by comparing SAS subscales against constructs such as generalized self-esteem, athletic competence, and social desirability. Correlations with Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scores were negligible to low (r = -.08 to -.19), indicating that responses to SAS items are relatively free from positive impression management biases. Furthermore, the distinctiveness between the Worry and Concentration Disruption subscales was evidenced by differential patterns of association: Worry was more strongly related to perfectionistic concerns and parental pressure, whereas Concentration Disruption was uniquely associated with motor execution errors and attentional lapses during high-stakes competition.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Numerous empirical studies have validated the predictive utility of the SAS in forecasting acute competitive state anxiety, physiological arousal markers, and sports performance outcomes. Smith and colleagues documented that baseline SAS scores significantly predicted pre-competition CSAI-2 state anxiety responses measured immediately prior to actual varsity games. In clinical and laboratory simulations, athletes with elevated Worry and Concentration Disruption scores showed greater performance decrements under high-pressure conditions compared to baseline conditions, confirming the scale’s sensitivity in identifying athletes prone to competitive choking.

8. Reliability

The Sport Anxiety Scale displays high internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse athletic disciplines, competitive tiers, and demographic groups:

Internal Consistency

In the original validation studies by Smith, Smoll, and Schutz (1990), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients demonstrated satisfactory to excellent internal reliability across collegiate and high school athletic cohorts:

• Somatic Trait Anxiety: Alpha values ranged from .88 to .92, reflecting excellent homogeneity among the 9 autonomic arousal items.
• Worry: Alpha coefficients ranged from .86 to .89 across gender and sport classifications, indicating strong scale cohesion.
• Concentration Disruption: Alphas ranged from .71 to .78, which is acceptable given the lower item count (5 items) and the domain specificity of attentional lapses.
• Total Scale: When utilized as an overall index of competitive trait anxiety, composite reliability typically exceeds .90.

Test-Retest Reliability (Temporal Stability)

To verify that the SAS measures stable trait characteristics rather than transient state fluctuations, test-retest investigations were conducted over intervals spanning 1 to 7 weeks. In collegiate athlete cohorts retested across a three-week duration during an active athletic season, Pearson test-retest correlation coefficients were:

• Somatic Trait Anxiety: r = .77
• Worry: r = .70
• Concentration Disruption: r = .68
• Total Composite Score: r = .77

These findings demonstrate that while individual subscale scores remain stable over time in the absence of interventions, they maintain sufficient dynamic responsiveness to detect longitudinal shifts following cognitive-behavioral skills training or coaching interventions.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural validity of the Sport Anxiety Scale was established through a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) across diverse athletic populations:

Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA)

During scale construction, an initial pool of over 40 potential items reflecting cognitive and physiological manifestations of anxiety was administered to college and high school athletes. Principal components analysis followed by oblique (Oblimin and Promax) rotations—acknowledging the expected theoretical correlation among anxiety facets—consistently yielded a three-factor solution with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. Items loading substantially (factor loadings > .40) on their primary factor without cross-loadings greater than .25 on secondary factors were retained, resulting in the final 21-item instrument.

Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA)

Subsequent validation studies tested competing structural models using structural equation modeling (SEM). The hypothesized three-factor oblique model was compared against two alternative structural representations: a unidimensional model (where all 21 items load on a single general trait anxiety factor) and a two-factor model (collapsing Worry and Concentration Disruption into a single Cognitive Anxiety factor while contrasting it against Somatic Anxiety).

Goodness-of-fit indices demonstrated the clear statistical superiority of the three-factor oblique model across high school, collegiate, and elite adult athlete cohorts:

• Three-Factor Oblique Model: Displayed acceptable to good fit indices, with Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) values exceeding .91, Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) exceeding .88, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) hovering between .90 and .93, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) values ranging from .052 to .065.
• Standardized Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across all 21 items were robust, with Somatic items loading between .58 and .81, Worry items loading between .54 and .84, and Concentration Disruption items loading between .46 and .74.
• Factor Intercorrelations: The latent correlations among factors confirmed moderate shared variance: Somatic Anxiety correlated with Worry at approximately r = .50 to .58; Somatic Anxiety correlated with Concentration Disruption at r = .40 to .46; and Worry correlated with Concentration Disruption at r = .42 to .53.

These empirical findings confirmed that while all three factors represent manifestations of athletic trait anxiety, collapsing them into fewer dimensions results in substantial loss of model fit and conceptual clarity.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Name: Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS)
• Alternative / Related Form: Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2; a 15-item revision developed by Smith et al., 2006 for youth and adult athletes)
• Test Type: Psychometric Self-Report Inventory / Trait Anxiety Rating Scale
• Target Population: High school, collegiate, amateur, and professional athletes (ages 14 to adult). Can also be administered in sport psychology research and coaching diagnostics.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or secure computer-based digital questionnaire. Group or individual administration.
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 8 minutes.
• Item Count: 21 items total.
• Subscale Breakdown:
  • Somatic Trait Anxiety (9 items): Items 1, 4, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21
  • Worry (7 items): Items 3, 5, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18
  • Concentration Disruption (5 items): Items 2, 6, 7, 14, 20
• Response Scale: Four-point Likert-type scale scored as follows:
  • 1 = Not At All
  • 2 = Somewhat
  • 3 = Moderately So
  • 4 = Very Much So
• Scoring and Interpretation Procedures:
  • All 21 items are scored directly in a positive direction (no reverse-scored items).
  • Somatic Trait Anxiety Score: Sum of ratings for items 1, 4, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21 (Theoretical range: 9 to 36). Higher scores indicate greater propensity toward autonomic, physiological arousal and visceral distress.
  • Worry Score: Sum of ratings for items 3, 5, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18 (Theoretical range: 7 to 28). Higher scores indicate elevated vulnerability to self-doubt, fear of failure, and evaluative performance pressure.
  • Concentration Disruption Score: Sum of ratings for items 2, 6, 7, 14, 20 (Theoretical range: 5 to 20). Higher scores denote difficulties sustaining selective attentional focus and increased susceptibility to task-irrelevant cognitive intrusions.
  • Total SAS Score: Can be computed by summing all 21 items (Theoretical range: 21 to 84) to provide an omnibus index of competitive trait anxiety, although profiling subscale scores is strongly recommended to preserve multidimensional utility.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The original Sport Anxiety Scale was published in 1990 by Ronald E. Smith, Frank L. Smoll, and Robert W. Schutz in the academic journal Anxiety Research (now titled Anxiety, Stress, & Coping). The scale is widely regarded within the public academic domain as an open-access scientific instrument intended for non-commercial educational, diagnostic, and clinical research purposes.

Researchers, sport psychologists, clinicians, and coaches may reproduce and administer the scale without paying royalty fees, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors and the primary 1990 citation is referenced. For commercial adaptations, integration into commercial software systems, or mass proprietary distribution, inquiries should be directed to the copyright holder (Taylor & Francis / the original authors) to obtain written operational permissions.

12. References

• Davidson, R. J., & Schwartz, G. E. (1976). The psychobiology of relaxation and related states: A multi-process theory of behavioral change. In D. I. Mostofsky (Ed.), Behavior control and modification of physiological activity (pp. 399–442). Prentice-Hall.
• Eysenck, M. W., & Calvo, M. G. (1992). Anxiety and performance: The processing efficiency theory. Cognition & Emotion, 6(6), 409–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208409696
• Eysenck, M. W., Derakhtshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336–353. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336
• Martens, R. (1977). Sport Competition Anxiety Test. Human Kinetics Publishers.
• Martens, R., Burton, D., Vealey, R. S., Bump, L. A., & Smith, D. E. (1990). Development and validation of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2. In R. Martens, R. S. Vealey, & D. Burton (Eds.), Competitive anxiety in sport (pp. 117–190). Human Kinetics Books.
• Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Schutz, R. W. (1990). Measurement and correlates of sport-specific cognitive and somatic trait anxiety: The Sport Anxiety Scale. Anxiety Research, 2(4), 263–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/08917779008248733
• Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., Cumming, S. P., & Grossbard, J. R. (2006). Measurement of multidimensional sport performance anxiety in children and adults: The Sport Anxiety Scale-2. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 28(4), 479–501. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.28.4.479
• Smith, R. E., Smoll, F. L., & Cumming, S. P. (2007). Effects of a motivational climate intervention for coaches on young athletes’ sport performance anxiety. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29(1), 39–59. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.29.1.39

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)