Effect of Playing Venue on Pre-Competition Cortisol Level and Competitive State Anxiety in University Basketball Players

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of playing venue for pre-competition cortisol and state anxiety in university male basketball players. Ninety six players from public and private universities of Lahore have evaluated during eight competitive matches played at home (n=4) and away (n=4) venues. Blood samples were collected to analyze the cortisol concentrations by the ELISA assay and state anxiety was assessed using the CSAI-2 questionnaire. All the data collection took place before the pre-match warm-up. Data was analyzed by using paired sample t test. Results showed that cortisol was significantly (p-0.002) elevated on away ground, whereas, somatic state anxiety was markedly (p-0.001) increased on an opponents home ground. In conclusion, it is suggested that playing venue affects cortisol response and anxiety score values on away ground that results in psychological interventions for players to deal with all threats and stressful stimuli of playing venue factors affecting the players performance on an opponents home ground.

Revising Home Advantage in Sport – Home Advantage Mediation (HAM) Model

“…As pointed by Furley (Furley, 2019) in a review on what sports can tell us about human nature, these results and theoretical assumptions are consistent with an evolutionary-based territoriality model where these responses are seen as natural responses to protecting one's territory (Furley, 2019;Neave & Wolfson, 2003). A recent study used a territoriality questionnaire to demonstrate that territoriality tendencies are indeed significantly higher in volleyball players playing at home than in away players (Tabassum et al, 2021).…”

“…Testosterone is also higher after a win at the home venue than after a win at an away venue (Carré, 2009). Testosterone levels drop after the match more in away players than in home players, despite the fact that home players had considerably higher levels before the game and therefore are statistically more likely to display a bigger drop (Tabassum et al, 2021).…”

“…In a sporting context, this may contribute to the willingness to exert more physical effort and in general for the motivation to compete (Jones et al, 2005;Neave & Wolfson, 2003). Research demonstrates that testosterone tends to be in general higher before home games (Arruda et al, 2014;Cunniffe et al, 2015;Neave & Wolfson, 2003;Tabassum et al, 2021) and lower before away games (Arruda er al., 2014;Carré et al, 2006;but see, Fothergill et al, 2017). Testosterone is also higher after a win at the home venue than after a win at an away venue (Carré, 2009).…”

“…The studies of psycho-physiological interconnections are, however, rare. Even papers that assessed both factors, such as Tabassum et al (2021) who demonstrated that home players had both higher testosterone and territoriality levels, did not calculate correlations between them. The studies that looked into the association between the two factors, however, indicate a close link.…”

Development Status and Influencing Factors of Competitive Basketball Management System under the Background of Deep Learning

“…Competitive sports are the study of how to strengthen the scientific nature of sports training, to explore the objective laws of sports training, to continuously improve the level and performance of various sports techniques, to climb the peak of world sports technology, to create world records, and to win the human sports activities of winning competitions [ 7 , 8 ]. In Chinese academic circles, in a general sense, people divide sports into three categories: competitive sports, mass sports, and school sports.…”