Construct Validity of the Anxiety Rating Scale -2 with Youth Wrestlers

The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the Anxiety Rating Scale-2 in a field sport setting of wrestling. Participants were 91 youth-sport wrestlers competing in a state wrestling tournament (M age = 14.2, U>SD = 1.2). Fifteen minutes prior to competition, participating wrestlers completed the ARS-2 (Cox, Russell, & Robb,1998). Wrestlers' match outcome was tracked (win, loss) and recorded. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for outcome. Followup descriptive discriminant procedures yielded structure coefficients suggesting the discriminatory ability of self-confidence in predicting outcome. Structure coefficients for cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and self-confidence were -.29, -.27, and .99, respectively. These results support previous ARS-2 construct validity studies in that winning and losing wrestlers could be discriminated as a function of ARS-2 selfconfidence score, but not cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety scores. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of accurate short-form psychological assessment of precompetitive anxiety and the importance of self-confidence in moderating cognitive and somatic anxiety in wrestling.