Week 3: The Psychology of Performance Anxiety
Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! This week, I decided to go beyond research articles and started reading The Psychology of Performance Anxiety, a book by Dianna Kenny that explores music performance anxiety. In today’s post, I’d like to share some takeaways from this book and how they relate to my project.
First off, in the book, Kenny emphasizes the importance of understanding performance anxiety and finding better strategies to manage it—something I briefly touched on in my introduction. She discusses how anxiety disorders are the most frequently diagnosed disorders and how performance anxiety is very common among musicians. In fact, research suggests that “between 60 and 80% of professional musicians suffer from its debilitating forms” (Gomez). The book also provides multiple examples of artists whose careers have been significantly affected by performance anxiety. For instance, Barbra Streisand avoided live performances for 27 years after forgetting the lyrics to her song at a concert. Kenny describes this as a form of psychological self-protection, where music performance anxiety acts as a defense mechanism against future emotional distress.
One of the book’s central themes is that “underlying psychological vulnerabilities” — such as low self-esteem or a strong need for external validation — can lead to performance anxiety. Experiencing challenges such as loneliness, lack of support and encouragement, betrayal, and abandonment — especially during childhood — can cause individuals to seek external validation later in life, which can increase their anxiety. This was particularly interesting to read about, as I hadn’t initially considered how early life experiences could play such a big role in shaping performance anxiety. This connects to my research because seeking validation from others is a form of extrinsic motivation, which, as I’ve discussed before, is correlated with heightened performance anxiety.
Kenny also contrasts the performance experiences of two classical musicians: Frédéric Chopin, who dreaded performing due to his anxiety, and Dale Reubart, who loved performing. She talks about how Chopin was more focused on how the audience perceived him, while Reubart was more focused on the joy of creating music. This comparison demonstrates that musicians who focus on others’ opinions of their performance (extrinsic motivation) often experience more anxiety than those who just focus on their love for the music (intrinsic motivation).
That’s all for today’s blog! I will continue reading this book and share any additional insights that I find. Also, next week, I will start giving out my survey to music students. Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for more updates!
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