Abstract
The purpose of the present experiment was to examine whether the use of self-handicapping strategies influences participants' anxiety levels before athletic performance. Seventy-one competitive basketball players participated in the study. A repeated measures design was used, such that state cognitive and somatic anxiety intensity and direction were measured before and after participants were given the opportunity to self-handicap. Overall, participants reported their cognitive anxiety to be more facilitating after they had the opportunity to self-handicap. Thus, participants who were given the opportunity to self-handicap (i.e., use claimed and behavioral self-handicaps), reported greater increases in perceptions of cog-nitive anxiety as facilitating their performance. This study shows the importance of looking at anxiety direction, and not just anxiety intensity, when examining self-handicapping's effects on anxiety. Implications for sport psychologists are proposed.