Abstract / Summary
This hypothesis-generating paper proposes a hybrid theoretical framework for music performance anxiety (MPA) that separates two questions often conflated in the literature: how severe MPA is, and why it occurs. The model treats MPA severity as dimensional while hypothesizing that comparable levels of severity may arise through different dominant causal and maintaining mechanisms. Five provisional mechanistic profiles are proposed: skill-deficit, trait-anxious, social-evaluative, somatic-dominant, and trauma/shame-based MPA. These profiles are not presented as established natural kinds or mutually exclusive diagnostic categories; rather, they are clinically and theory-derived, overlapping configurations intended to generate discriminating empirical predictions. The paper first distinguishes physiological arousal from anxiety and performance impairment and reviews limitations in optimal-arousal, flow, positive/negative and facilitating/debilitating anxiety, and unitary accounts of MPA. It then specifies the causal architecture and core propositions of the hybrid model, proposes a multimethod research assessment battery, and derives profile-specific predictions concerning developmental history, contextual reactivity, psychophysiology, and treatment response. Treatment matching is framed as a testable moderation hypothesis rather than an established clinical algorithm. The model predicts that mechanism-informed treatment selection will explain outcome variance beyond baseline MPA severity. Alternative dimensional, hierarchical, network, and continuous-profile accounts are considered, and a program of taxonometric, latent-profile, longitudinal, experimental, psychophysiological, and stratified intervention research is proposed. The framework is intended as a falsifiable research program for explaining heterogeneity in MPA and improving mechanism-informed intervention.