Anxiety and Performance

Abstract

The concept of anxiety has been used in a bewildering variety of ways by different theorists. While some regard anxiety as a motivational state, others consider it to be an emotion, and still others claim that it combines motivational and emotional components. In spite of these differences of opinion, there would probably be reasonable agreement with the following definition of the anxiety state that was proposed by Spielberger (1972): “Unpleasant, consciously-perceived feelings of tension and apprehension, with associated activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system” (p. 29).