14782 ISSN 2286-4822 www.euacademic.org EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH Vol. II, Issue 10/ January 2015 Impact Factor: 3.1 (UIF) DRJI Value: 5.9 (B+) The Level of Somatic Anxiety on Sport Performances among Handball Players VINCENT PARNABAS Sport Science and Recreation Faculty University of MARA Technology (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia JULINAMARY PARNABAS Institut Pendidikan Guru, Kampus Darulaman Jitra, Kedah, Malaysia ANTOINETTE MARY PARNABAS Medical Unit, Hospital Taiping Taiping, Perak, Malaysia Abstract The main purpose of this study was to identify the levels of somatic anxiety and sport performances among handball athletes of different skill. In other words, this research aims to correlates the relationship between the level of somatic anxiety and sport performance. The instrument used for the study comprised of a 27-item Competitive State Anxiety Inventory–2 and The Psychological Performance Inventory which had been distributed during sport between universities competition. The sample consisted of 98 handball players, including the national athletes (N=33), state athletes (N=21), district athletes (N=25) and university athletes (N= 19).The results showed that elite or national handball athletes exhibited lower levels of somatic anxiety, F (3, 98) = 18.347, p < .01. The result also showed that the exits of negative correlation between somatic anxiety and sport performance among handball players, (r = -0.69; p<0.05). Sport psychologists, sport counselors and coaches should use the present findings to recommend coping strategies to university and district level athletes that are appropriate for dealing with their athletes’ somatic anxiety. Keyword: Somatic, Sport Performance, Skill of players. 1. Introduction Anxiety, as a negative emotional, affect perceptions in sport competitions, where a large majority of athletes consider anxiety to be debilitative towards performance, which may result in decreases in performance (Weinberg & Gould, 2011; Raglin & Hanin, 2000). Many researches showed that winning in a competition depend on how an athlete can control their anxiety level (Humara, 2001). Anxiety consists of two subcomponents: cognitive and somatic anxiety, which influence performance (Jarvis, 2002; Martens, Vealey & Burton, 1990). The cognitive is the mental component, which characterized by negative expectations about success or self-evaluation, negative self-talk, worries about performance, images of failure, inability to concentrate, and disrupted attention (Jarvis 2002; Martens, Vealey & Burton, 1990). Contradictory, the somatic is the physiological element, which related to autonomic