Helga Dizdari has done her thesiswork about Attachment, Competitive Anxiety and Self-Confidence among Competitive Swimmers. We are glad to be able to publish her work her at SCAR.
Attachment has been associated with the way individuals adjust themselves in various social, emotional and behavioral contexts. Attachment and sports performance remains one of the most unexplored topics in sport psychology. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine possible relationships between attachment styles, competitive anxiety, self-confidence and performance among competitive swimmers aged 17-20. The participants were 44 swimmers from all over Sweden (24 elite and 20 sub-elite). It was hypothesized that elite swimmers differ significantly from sub-elite swimmers in their attachment, competitive anxiety and self-confidence scores. The hypotheses were partially supported by the findings. The study found one significant result, which stated that insecure anxious attachment style combined with young age predicted lower performance results among swimmers. Interestingly this style was found to be prevalent among sub-elite swimmers. The findings should be treated in a very delicate and careful way and ethical considerations should be considered.