Threat and challenge appraisals of impression management cognitions in team-sport athletes

Since Schlenker and Leary’s (1982) comprehensive review, much research has examined the self-presentational antecedents of social anxiety. Further, Leary’s (1995) formula for social anxiety: Strong impression motivation (IMO) coupled with correspondingly weak impression efficacy (IEFF), has stimulated considerable research in sport psychology; the associated construct, ‘self-presentation concerns,’ consistently predicts a good amount of variance in trait and state competition anxiety (Wilson & Eklund, 1998; McGowan, Prapavessis, & Wesch, 2008). However, despite quite a substantial body of literature (cf. Martin Ginis, Lindwall, & Prapavessis, 2007), the extant research has failed to acknowledge the potential for functional cognitive and emotional responses to result from a discrepancy between high IMO and low IEFF. Couched in the framework of Lazarus and Folkman (1984, 1991), and part of a questionnaire development and validation study, this presentation will discuss how athletes may often appraise these impression management constructs as a challenge, not a threat i.e. they induce excitement, not anxiety. Data fromindependent samples of team-sport athletes that were utilised for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support this contention. The measurement device in question, the Impression Motivation and Efficacy in Sport Questionnaire (IMESQ-T), is the first known measure to tap these key self-presentation cognitions. Results lead to theoretical assertions concerning the psychological mechanisms that may underpin the data - which have implications for preventing self-presentational anxiety. Limitations of the study will be discussed, and suggestions for future research offered.