Flow state of shy athletes and dancers

The performance environment of athletes and dancers is highly stressful due to the pressure of successfully delivering highly technical and intricate movements during games and showcases. Optimal performance is attained by having proper physical and mental preparations (i.e., adequate warm-up, having confidence, and managing anxiety) to achieve high flow-state. Flow is an intrinsically rewarding experience that is resulted by a balance between perceived skill and perceived challenge of a situation. Studies (Jackson, 1995; Russell, 2001) have found specific themes that prevent or disrupt flow during performance, including nonoptimal physical preparation, lacking confidence, inappropriate focus, overarousal before competition, and performing poorly. Many of these themes can be related to symptoms of shyness. Shyness is a tendency to excessively obsess about the self during social settings, resulting in inappropriate social responses (e.g., aversion of eye contact) and emotional and cognitive distress (e.g., anxiety). Symptoms include negative beliefs about the self, attacks of nervousness, fear of appearing incompetent, and having low self-esteem (Scott, 2005; Zimbardo, 1986). Interestingly, shy individuals do display competent behaviors during social situations that are guided by social rules. Shy individuals can, therefore, have competent social interactions with co-workers, sales persons, or customers due to predictability (Scott, 2005). Despite their competence during familiar social situations, shyness can have debilitating effects on flow due to symptoms, such as anxiety of being evaluated by audience, negative attitude, low-confidence in abilities, and increased tension and heart rate. The current study analyzed 43 athletes and 59 dancers at a college level to see if there was a relationship between trait shyness and dispositional flow states. Two hypotheses were asked: (1) trait shyness was not associated with total dispositional flow-state and (2) high shy-trait dancers and athletes would have significantly lower dispositional flow state subscales that were externally focused (e.g., unambiguous feedback, loss of self-consciousness, and transformation of time) compared to low shy-trait participants. By controlling for gender, partial correlation revealed trait shyness to be correlated with global flow and a few subscales of flow including Merging of Action and Awareness, Concentration of the Task at Hand, Sense of Control, Loss of Self Consciousness, and Autotelic Experience, all with a p .05. Linear regression demonstrated that shyness significantly predicted global flow scores (β = -0.26, t(100) = 23.27, p .001). After doing a median split on shyness, MANCOVA with gender as a covariate found no significant main effect for shyness groups, which was expected through our hypothesis that certain dimensions would have similar scores between shyness groups. Further ANOVA analyses found significant differences in global flow (F(1,100) = 8.69, p .01), Unambiguous Feedback (F(1,100) = 5.60, p .05), Concentration on the Task at Hand (F(1,100) = 6.23, p .05), Sense of Control (F(1,100) = 7.07, p .01), Loss of Self-Consciousness (F(1,100) = 5.95, p .05), and Autotelic Experience (F(1,100) = 6.52, p .05) between shy and nonshy groups. However, only global flow, Sense of Control, and Autotelic Experience had medium effect sizes while the rest were small. Although hypothesis one was not supported, prior research have found flow to be negatively correlated with performance anxiety among athletes and musicians (Wiggins, 2000; Kirchner Skutnick-Henley, 2008). In addition, Walker and Nordin-Bates (2010) found that feeling out of control was a major theme among ballet dancers. This loss of control may be associated as to why hypothesis two was partially supported. Nicholl's achievement motivation theory explains that those who are ego-involved strive for competitive goal-orientation in which they compare their objective outcomes (e.g. scoring points or status) to other players or dancers. Thus, competitive-oriented athletes and dancers have an external locus of control. Research have found that competitive orientation is positively correlated with cognitive and somatic anxiety, concentration disruption, and worry (Bray, Martin, Widmeyer, 2000; Morris Kavussanu, 2009; Yoo, 2003; Steffen, Pensgaard, Bahr, 2009). If shy athletes and dancers have a tendency to be competitively-oriented, then the reasons as to why global flow, Unambiguous Feedback, Concentration on the Task at Hand, Sense of Control, Loss of Self-Consciousness, and Autotelic Experience were significantly lower in shy athletes and dancers compared to the nonshy group may be explained. Limitations of the current research included small effect sizes. However, despite the small effect sizes, regression analysis was able to reveal trait shyness as a significant predictor of global flow. Future research suggestions include investigation of motivation achievement differences between shy and nonshy athletes and dancers, gender differences on shy experience and flow, and effect of trait shyness on state flow.