JOURNAL OF SPORT PSYCHOUXjY, 1987. 9, 231-248 Generality and Specificity of Attention
Related to Competitive Anxiety
and Sport Performance
Richard R. Albrecht and Deborah L. Feltz
Michigan State University
The Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) was developed as an
objective measure by which an individual's attentional predisposition could
be identified and used to predict performance on a variety of tasks. The present
study had three purposes: (a) to construct a baseball/softball batting (B-TAIS)
version of each TAIS attentional subscale, (b) to compare TAIS and B-TAIS
reliability, and (c) to compare TAIS and B-TAIS validity. Both instruments
were administered to 29 intercollegiate baseball and Softball players. The BTAIS demonstrated slightly higher test-restest reliability on five of the six
attentional subscales and was higher than the TAIS in internal consistency
on all subscales. Batting performance was positively related to all B-TAIS
subscales assessing effective attentional deployment and negatively related
to all subscales assessing ineffective attention. Significant positive correlations also existed between B-TAIS ineffective subscale scores and competitive trait anxiety. However, these relationships were not found with the general
TAIS. The theory of attentional style, as proposed by Nideffer (1976a, 1976b,
1981), offers a parsimonious explanation as to how athletic performance may
be related to one's predisposition toward a particular style of attention. Drawing
heavily upon Easterbrook's (1959) cue utilization theory, Nideffer also provides
an explanation for the relationship between individual anxiety levels and attentional errors. The present study was designed to test Nideffer's theory with baseball and Softball batters.
According to Nideffer's theory, at any particular point in time an individual's attentional focus ranges somewhere along a continuum between broad and
narrow. At the same time one's attention is focused in this generally broad or
narrow manner, it is being directed toward either internal thoughts and feelings
This investigation was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
M.A. degree under the direction of Dr. Deborah L. Feltz at Michigan State University.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard R. Albrecht, 2051.M. Sports-Circle,
Michigan State University, E. Lansing, MI 48824.
231 232 / Albrecht and Feltz or external stimuli present in the environment. In addition, there is a natural tendency for an individual to spend an inordinate amount of time functioning within
a relatively limited range along each of these two dimensions of attention. This
personal inclination toward a certain focus of attention is frequently referred to
as an individual's "preferred attentional style" (Nideffer, 1976a, 1976b, 1981).
Superimposed on this foundation that everyone possesses a preferred attentional style is the basic assumption that various behavioral tasks place different situational demands on a performer's attention. Nideffer (1976b, 1981) has
organized these situational demands into four distinct categories: broad-external,
broad-internal, narrow-external, and narrow-internal. To the extent that one's
personal attentional style matches or is congruent with the specific situational demands of a given task, the more proficient one is likely to be in performing that
task.
Another key element in Nideffer's theory involves the relationship between
attention and competitive arousal (Nideffer, 1980, 1981). Three major changes
in attention are proposed to occur as the level of anxiety increases. First, as arousal
increases the athlete becomes locked into his or her preferred attentional style.
As a result he or she is unable to rapidly shift attentional focus from one type
to another (e.g., from narrow-internal to broad-external) even when, as is the
case in most sport situations, a more fiexible attentional focus may be appropriate at the time.
The second modification in attention that occurs with an increase in the
level of competitive arousal, according to Nideffer (1980, 1981), is that one's
attentional focus begins to narrow involuntarily. As a result, the amount of information from both internal and external sources that tnay be processed and evaluated is greatly reduced. Clearly, performance will suffer to the extent that this
excluded information contains cues relevant to the task.
Nideffer (1980, 1981) suggests the third, and perhaps most significant
change in an individual's attentional focus under high levels of arousal, is one's
tendency to become more internally focused. As Nideffer describes it.
The person becomes distracted by his own bodily feelings (beating heart,
muscle tension, and so on) and his thoughts (why did the runners leave base,
what's the matter with me, I might choke, and so on). As attention is directed internally, the ability to concentrate on the game deteriorates. (1980, p. 103)
Scientific criticism of previously existing personality assessment instruments
and the desire to objectively measure and categorize individual attentional styles
led Nideffer (1976a) to develop the self-report Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS). On the basis of an item analysis, 144 TAIS items were placed
into 17 "rationally defined" subscales designed to measure and provide information concerning the respondent's ability to control various factors believed to
be important in effective performances across diverse life situations. Nine of the
17 subscales purport to describe how an individual is most likely to behave in
a variety of interpersonal situations, and two are designed to provide information
concerning one's ability to exert behavioral and cognitive control. The six remaining TAIS subscales have been developed to provide an indication of the individual's tendency to adopt either an appropriate or inappropriate attentional
focus. High scores on the broad-external (BET), broad-internal (BIT), and narrow- Generality and Specificity of Attention / 233
attention (NAR) subscales are thought to refiect an effective deployment of attention, while high scores on the corresponding overload-external (OET),
overload-internal (OIT), and reduced-attention (RED) subscales are considered
indications of an individual's tendency to adopt an ineffective attentional focus
(Nideffer, 1976b, 1981).
These six TAIS subscales, however, do not represent all four categories
of attentional style proposed by Nideffer's theory of attentional style. Although
broad-external and broad-internal attentional styles can be measured directly by
the TAIS, the NAR (narrow-attention) subscale appears to assess only an individual's ability to narrow attention in regard to external stimuli. Thus, while Nideffer's
theory proposes a fourth (narrow-internal) style of attention, the TAIS does not
include a subscale specifically for its measurement.
Although Nideffer has reported research supporting the construct validity
of the TAIS (Depalma & Nideffer, 1977; Nideffer, 1977), interactionists such
as Endler (1973, 1975) would suggest that any instrument developed to assess
personality-behavioral relationships must not ignore the specific situational context in which these behaviors occur. To do so would be to address only half of
the issue since behavior of any type is a product of the complex interaction between situation-specific variables and the unique personality traits the performer
brings with him or her to that situation. The contention that all investigations
into the area of individual attentional style be conducted from this interactionist
perspective takes on even greater urgency when examining situations that may
differ significandy from those encountered in everyday life. For instance, an athlete
may tend to become overloaded by external stimuli in common everyday situations, but as a result of training or some other intervening variable may not respond
the same way within the specific context of a sport environment.
One investigation into athletes' attentional processes that used this situationby-individual interaction paradigm was conducted by Van Schoyck and Grasha
(1981). They found that by using a parallel, sport-specific (tennis) version of the
TAIS, they obtained even higher test-retest and internal consistency reliability
coefficients than when using the more general TAIS. In addition, the sport-specific
measure of attention was a significantly better predictor of the subjects' match
play performance. However, Van Schoyck and Grasha's decision to make the
TAIS tennis-specific introduces a number of possible confounding variables. First,
the sport of tennis does not contain one predominant attentional demand. A tennis player must constantly and rapidly shift his or her attentional focus along
Nideffer's (1976a, 1976b, 1981) proposed direction (internal-external) and breadth
(broad-narrow) dimensions of attention. Despite the iniportance of attentional flexibility in tennis performance, it cannot be directly assessed by the TAIS. Second,
task-irrelevant environmental stimuli (e.g., crowd noise) may be artificially
reduced by the fact that few spectators are present during club tennis matches,
and those who may be there are restrained by the social etiquette which dictates
that spectators refrain from distracting tennis players in any way. Given this situation, scores on the TAIS subscale assumed to measure the tendency to become
overloaded by external stimuli (OET) may not discriminate between effective and
ineffective attentional deployment.
The present study had three purposes. The first was to construct a modified,
baseball/softball batting-specific (B-TAIS) version of the six attentional subscales
contained in the original TAIS. The rationale for the development of a sport- 234 / Albrecht and Feltz Specific form of the TAIS was based on the research conducted by Van Schoyck
(1979) and Van Schoyck and Grasha (1981). Modification of the TAIS was limited
to batting in baseball and softball in order to focus on a sport task that is frequently cited in the sport science literature (Nideffer, 1976b, 1978, 1981; Van
Schoyck & Grasha, 1981) as carrying with it one predominant (narrow-external)
attentional demand. In addition, baseball/softball batting was selected because
of the obvious influence of attentional focus on the performance of this task. Magill
(1985), for example, estimates that a baseball thrown at 90 miles per hour takes
only 0.4 sec. from the time the ball leaves the pitcher's hand until it crosses the
plate. After allowing for necessary movement and reaction time, batters are realistically left with probably only 0.1 to 0.15 sec. of time to decide whether or not
to swing, and if so, which swing to use. Under such conditions even the slightest
error in attentional focus can make the difference between success and failure.
The second purpose of this study was to assess the reliability advantages
of employing a sport task-specific measure of attentional style by comparing it
to a general measure of the attentional processes. The third purpose was to compare the B-TAIS and the TAIS in terms of each instrument's construct validity.
Of particular interest was the hianner in which a batter's attentional process varied
as a function of his or her skill level and the competitive anxiety he or she experienced while batting.
Assuming that a narrow-external attentional focus is required for hitting a
baseball, Nideffer's theory would predict that baseball and softball players having a narrow-external attentional style (thereby corresponding to the situational
task demands) will tend to perform the task more effectively than those hitters
with a relatively broad-external, broad-internal, or narrow-internal preferred attentional style. In addition, based on Nideffer's predictions concerning the relationship between attention and arousal, it follows that the higher an athlete's level
of competitive anxiety, the higher he or she should score on the reduced-attention
(RED) and internal-overload (OIT) subscales of the TAIS. However, there has
been no research to support tiiis prediction thus far. Method
Subjects
Fifteen members of the Michigan State University 1984 men's varsity intercollegiate baseball team and 14 members of the women's varsity intercollegiate
Softball team served as subjects. College-level athletes were chosen as participants
in the study in order to maintain as much consistency as possible with the original work by Nideffer (1976a) in which college undergraduates were used as a
norming population for the TAIS. The selection of intercollegiate athletes as subjects was also made in order to obtain a population that was not still in the learning phase of the specific task (e.g.. Little League players), while at the same
time avoiding highly skilled performers such as professional athletes who, as Lawther (1977) points out, undergo a natural selection process that may leave them
less subject to internal and external distractions. Measures
Measures of Attentional Style. Each subject's individual attentional style
was assessed and classified through the use of two 59-item survey instruments. Generality and Specificity of Attention / 235 The first measure consisted of the six attentional subscales (BET, OET, BIT,
OIT, NAR, RED) and the cognitive control-information processing (INFP) subscale of Nideffer's (1976a) TAIS. In addition, the B-TAIS parallel version of
the TAIS which was developed specifically for the purpose of this study was also
given to all subjects.' Items contained in the B-TAIS were generated by two individuals with extensive knowledge in psychology and baseball/softball batting
skills. All 59 items on the six attentional and cognitive control subscales of the
TAIS were converted to a baseball/softball batting-specific reference, maintaining as much of the original TAIS context, grammatical structure, and wording
in each item as possible. An example of an item included on the TAIS narrowattention (NAR) subscale and its B-TAIS counterpart is as follows:
TAIS: When I read, it is easy to block out everything but the book.
B-TAIS: When I bat, it is easy to block out everything but the ball. When all 59 TAIS attentional and information-processing subscale items
had been converted to a batting-specific frame of reference, items contained in
the original TAIS, the tennis-specific version (T-TAIS) of the TAIS developed
by Van Schoyck (1979), and the newly constructed B-TAIS were reviewed by
a panel of five sport psychologists. The five reviewers were selected on the basis
that each had recently published articles in the Journal of Sport Psychology dealing specifically with the topic of attentional style and each used the TAIS as a
measure of athletes' attentional style. All experts rated each of the 59 B-TAIS
items on the basis that its general meaning, as it relates to the appropriate attentional subscale of the TAIS, had been maintained. If raters disagreed, the opinions of the majority prevailed. Each B-TAIS item was also reviewed by an
intercollegiate varsity baseball and softball coach in order to assure that the task
relevancy of the items was adequate as sport-task specific measures of attentional style.
Measures of Competitive Trait Anxiety. Given the relationships between
anxiety and athletic performance, all subjects were asked to complete two separate
measures of competitive trait anxiety—the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT;
Martens, 1977) and a trait version (CTAI-2) of the Competitive State Anxiety
Inventory-2 (CSAI-2; Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1982). Two
measures of competitive anxiety were used in an attempt to offset the test-form
or response set bias that may cause any one measure to elicit systematic variance
in responses (Campbell & Fiske, 1959).
The CSAI-2, a 27-item self-report instrument, was developed in response
to the need for a multidimensional assessment of competitive anxiety. Two subcomponents of anxiety are measured by the CSAI-2, cognitive anxiety (worry)
and somatic anxiety (physiological arousal), as well as self-confidence. A 4-point
Likert scale is used in scoring all inventory items. While the CSAI-2 was originally intended as a measure of state anxiety, we assumed that modifying the test
instructions so that each item is answered in terms of bow the subject usually
feels would result in a general or trait measure of competitive anxiety since simi'A copy of this batting-specific modification of the TAIS may be obtained from the
first author. 236 / Albrecht and Feltz lar procedures have been used by a nimiber of other developers of state-trait measures (e.g.. Martens, 1977; McNair, Lorr, & Dropplemann, 1971; Spielberger,
Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970; Vealey, 1986).
Measure of Batting Performance. One way to assess the validity of a test
of attentional style is to examine the relationship between an athlete's scores on
the six subscales measuring attentional style and his or her seasonal batting performance. The result of every time-at-bat for each subject during the entire 1984
varsity intercoUegiate baseball and softball season was recorded by a paid official scorer present at each game. It is this individual's responsibility to declare
the official outcome of each hitter's time-at-bat, and to accurately record this outcome on an official scorecard. On the basis of these official game records, a measure of seasonal batting performance—seasonal contact percentage—was
calculated. Although it is assumed that a batter's appropriate or inappropriate
attentional focus will contribute in some way to virtually every batting performance measure, additional factors such as an individual's biomeclianical efficiency,
running speed, physical strength, scorer's judgment, or sheer luck may also determine performance in many of these areas. We considered contact percentage,
defined as the percentage of official plate appearances in which the subject made
contact with the ball in such a manner that the ball was put into play, to be the
single best indicator of a subject's appropriate or inappropriate attentional focus
while batting.
Procedure
Administration of Attention and Anxiety Measures. All 59 items contained
in the attentional and cognitive control subscales of the original TAIS, as well
as the 59 items included in the B-TAIS, were administered to each subject in
a group setting during a regularly scheduled practice session early in the season.
The order of the tests was counterbalanced, with half of the baseball and softball
players receiving the original TAIS first and then the B-TAIS, while the other
half received them in reverse order. After each subject completed the two measures of attentional style, he or she then completed the SCAT. To assess the testretest reliability of both attentional measures as well as to compare the two anxiety inventories, all subjects completed the original TAIS and the B-TAIS at a
2-week interval. During this retest session each subject also completed the
CTAI-2. This 2-week interval was selected in order to maintain consistency with
Nideffer's (1976b) original protocol. Scoring on both measures of attentional style
was in accordance with the procedures set forth by Nideffer (1977) for the scoring of the TAIS.
Collection of Performance Measures. Official scorers' statistics were obtained for all regularly scheduled Michigan State University intercollegiate varsity baseball and softball competitions during the 1984 season. The varsity baseball team was involved in 46 competitions, 26 at their home field and 20 at
opponents' fields. The varsity softball team played 18 home competitions and
20 on the road during the regular season. On the basis of the official game statistics, seasonal contact percentage was calculated for all baseball players who had
at least 46 official plate appearances, and for softball players who had batted at
least 38 times during the season (an average of one plate appearance per game).
This was done to control for athletes who had few if any official at-bats during
the year. Generality and Specificity of Attention / 237 Data Analysis
Data collected in the study were subjected to a variety of statistical procedures. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated to estimate TAIS and B-TAIS test-retest reliability, subscale-by-item correlations, and
relationships between attentional subscales, competitive anxiety, and performance.
An estimate of the consistency with which TAIS and B-TAIS subscale items measured unique attentional dimensions was assessed by computing the Cronbach
alpha reliability coefficient for each subscale. Fisher's Z transformations and independent t tests were used to determine significant differences between the baseball and Softball teams on all attentional, anxiety, and performance variables. Results and Discussion
Descriptive Statistics
Means and standard deviations for each of the attentional and informationprocessing subscales contained in Nideffer's (1976b) original TAIS and the batdngspecific B-TAIS, SCAT, CTAI-2, and contact percentage are presented in Table
1. Because only male athletes were members of the varsity baseball team and
only females participated in varsity softball, t tests^ were performed to check for
possible gender differences between the two teams. All restilts were nonsignificant; therefore the two teams were combined for all ftirther analyses.
Figure 1 illustrates how subjects' TAIS and B-TAIS scores compare to
TAIS scores reported by Nideffer (1976a). Attentional profiles for the baseball/softball batters are compared with Nideffer's college student norms by plotting the group's means as Z scores. College norms are represented as 0.0 Z on
each subscale. The batters' scores were found to be considerably higher than the
college norms on the narrow-attention (NAR) subscale of both the TAIS and BTAIS. The subjects' TAIS attentional profile appears virtually identical to the
college student norms, with the exception that the subjects' mean score on the
NAR subscale was one ftill standard deviation above that of the norming population. The dramatic difference between the baseball/softball batters and the college student norms on this subscale, purported to measure the type of attention
generally thought involved in the task of hitting a baseball or softball, raises the
possibility that such attentional differences are sport related. This extraordinarily high NAR score was even more pronounced on the B-TAIS. NAR subscale
scores on the B-TAIS were nearly two Z scores above the norm, while B-TAIS
scores on every other subscale were found to be somewhat below the college
student norm reported by Nideffer. Although the general configuration of the
attentional profile is similar for the B-TAIS and the TAIS, differences between
subscales tend to be magnified through the use of the situation-specific B-TAIS. Comparisons of TAIS and B-TAIS Reliability
Two measures of reliability were taken to compare the TAIS and B-TAIS:
test-retest reliability and internal consistency. The test-retest coefficients and in'The SPSS subprogram T TEST provides the capability of computing an approximation to t for independent sample means with unequal sample sizes. 238 / Albrecht and Feltz
Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations for all Dependent Variables (n = 29)
Variable M TAIS subscale
Broad-external (BET)
Overload-external (OET)
Broad-internal (Bll)
Overload-internal (OIT)
Narrow attention (NAR)
Reduced attention (RED) SD 14.03
17.48
17.86
12.96
27.26
24.93
42.11 2.63
4.32
3.00
3.02
4.52
3.56
7.08 13.77
13.48
16.74
11.52
31.35
23.00
40.23 2.88
5.01
3.77
3.40
6.82
5.83
7.29 CSAI-2
Cognitive
Somatic
Confidence 16.48
14.41
28.82 3.23
3.57
4.03 SCAT 17.55 3.90 Information processing (INFP)
B-TAIS subscaies
Broad-external (BET)
Overload-external (OET)
Broad-internal (BIT)
Overload-internal (OiT)
Narrow attention (NAR)
Reduced attention (RED)
information processing (INFP) Contact percentage
Baseball team (n = 15)
Softball team (/7 = 14) .873
.888 .137
.097 I temal consistency coefficients for TAIS and B-TAIS subscales are given in Table
2. Based on Van Schoyck and Grasha's (1981) finding that a tennis-specific version of the TAIS resulted in increased stability over time when compared to the
original TAIS, we hypothesized that the B-TAIS would similarly exhibit higher
test-retest correlations than the parent measure on all six attentional subscales.
Examination of Table 2 reveals that although the test-retest reliabilities
of both attentional measures were significant and generally high, in contrast to
the original prediction, the only statistically significant difference in test-retest
reliability between the two instruments occurred on the OIT subscale purported
to measure the tendency to become overloaded by internal stimuli. The OFT exhibited significantly more s...

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