How guilt/shame proneness and coping style are related to music performance anxiety and stress symptoms by gender
This week's article for Musician's Journal Club was a 2018 article from Psychology of Music entitled "How guilt/shame proneness and coping style are related to music performance anxiety and stress symptoms by gender". Performance anxiety is a complex and prevalent issue in musicians, and this article dove in to some of the predictors for performance anxiety.
Music performance anxiety symptoms include muscle tension, sweaty hands, hyperventilation, dry mouth, shakiness, increased heard rate, arm and neck stiffness, difficulty maintaining posture, and difficulty concentrating. There are many performance anxiety management strategies, and both long-term and short-term techniques were found to be useful in effective management. Some strategies include deep breathing, yoga, meditation, exercise, having strong social support, and in some cases, use of medications. Any use of medications should be overseen by a medical provider, not used as a self-treatment method.
As far as preventing performance anxiety, practice hours and performance experience were both linked with decreased performance anxiety. This connection between anxiety and familiarity with the performance environment held true in students at varying levels of education.
This paper specifically studied guilt/shame proneness, and found a link between shame proneness and increased performance anxiety symptoms. Shame orientation refers to a mental state based on a negative view of oneself where the individual attributes negative outcomes to their own perceived negative character. Shame proneness also causes an individual to withdraw from the situation. In music performance, this looks like a performer believing that a mistake in a concert is all their fault because they are a bad musician, and then trying to withdraw from future performance situations. It is clear to see how this relates to increased performance anxiety.
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| Survey results showing that 96% of respondents had experienced performance anxiety, 100% say their experience with performance anxiety has changed over time, with 65% saying their performance anxiety generally decreased over time. Only 52% of respondents received education about performance anxiety, and 77% of respondents who are teachers discuss performance anxiety with their students. |
Reflection
This week's posts did not ignite quite as much discussion as last weeks, which I believe is because many of the accounts following me on Instagram are related to musculoskeletal health. The three main posts for this week, explaining the article and giving discussion questions, had combined 33 likes and 3 comments (at the time of writing this blog post). The Instagram polls averaged 40 views and 21 responses on each question. My follower count grew from 30% in the last week to 96 followers.This week provided a greater challenge for me because the content of the article is not work I am as familiar with as last week's article. Because I do research in orthopaedic biomechanics, I am very familiar with anatomy and musculoskeletal injuries, but I don't have the same background in understanding mental health. I had to put additional time in to reading and researching this article to ensure that I was not putting out misinformation. However, I appreciated learning about the different mental orientations and coping strategies that I was previously less familiar with.
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