An empirical test of the interaction model of anxiety in a competitive equestrian setting

An empirical test of the interaction model of anxiety was assessed by measuring both state anxiety (A-state) and trait anxiety (A-Trait) of 82 female adolescent competitive equestrian riders in a stressful and non-stressful situation. The social evaluation facet (SE) of A-trait was examined to determine how it interacts with a congruent social evaluation stress situation in inducing A-State arousal. As predicted, high SE A-Trait subjects experienced greater increases in A-State than low SE subjects, proceeding from the non-stress to the high-stress condition. For the congruent SE A-Trait facet, a significant person-by-situation (P×S) interaction was observed. That is SE A-Trait and SE stress interacted in inducing A-State arousal. No P×S interactions were observed for the non-congruent Physical Danger, Daily Routines and Ambiguous A-Trait facets. The results of the differential hypotheses indicated strong confirmation of the interaction model for the SE facet of A-Trait by social evaluation stress situation.