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Stressors, Appraisals, and Coping in Olympic and International Level Sport Coaches
No full textTo facilitate optimal performance, coaches require refined skills for coping with the stressful events that they and their athletes encounter. However, little is known about how coaches cope with stressors and sustain their involvement in sport. Therefore, using the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of stress and emotions (Lazarus, 1999), this study aimed to provide an in depth exploration of the stress and coping experiences of elite level coaches who are based in the U.K. Specifically, this study explored the stressors encountered, the situational properties of these stressors, the transactional alternatives experienced, the coping strategies used, and coaches’ short-term perceived coping effectiveness of the strategies employed. Fifteen high level coaches were interviewed using a semi-structured approach. To establish a clear skill level for the participants, an elite level coach was defined as an individual currently coaching at international or Olympic level who had been coaching at this level for a minimum of five years. All of the interviews were conducted face-to-face and lasted between 35 and 95 minutes (Mlength = 57.47, SD = 15.81). A variety of stressors (e.g., effective communication, media coverage) were reported by the coaches that were underpinned by seven situational properties. Coaches experienced challenge, benefit, threat, and harm appraisals and primarily coped using strategies that aimed to solve stressors (e.g., effective planning) or manage coach and athlete emotions (e.g., positive encouragement). Coaches suggested that the majority of their coping strategies were moderately effective in terms of managing the negative outcomes of stress. Interestingly, each of the fifteen coaches reported that their primary concern during stressful experiences was to minimise the impact of these experiences on athletes. The findings suggest that practitioners should work alongside coaches to consider the complex and idiographic nature of stress experiences from both coach and athlete perspectives
Association for Applied Sport Psychology Annual Conference 2011: An overview and a personal highlight.
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Olympic and International Level Sports Coaches’ Experiences of Stressors, Appraisals, and Coping
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to use the cognitive-motivational-relational theory (CMRT) of stress and emotions as a lens to explore psychological stress with Olympic and international level sports coaches. In particular, the study aimed to explore situational properties of stressors and coaches’ appraisals to address voids in the published literature. Guided by my constructionist epistemological position that contains traces of post-positivism and my relativist view of reality, I conducted semi-structured interviews with six women and nine men. I applied abductive logic during latent thematic analyses to organise and analyse the data. The findings suggest that the coaches experienced many stressors that related to 10 themes (e.g. athlete concerns, performance) and that these stressors were underpinned by seven situational properties (e.g. ambiguity, imminence, novelty). The coaches reported challenge and threat appraisals and, to a lesser extent, benefit and harm/loss appraisals. The ways of coping that were discussed with the coaches related to seven families of coping (e.g. dyadic coping, support seeking) that each play a different role in adaptive processes. Collectively, the findings shed new light on the explanatory potential of situational properties and appraisals and go some way towards understanding coaches’ diverse experiences. The CMRT was a useful framework for understanding high level coaches’ stress transactions and, thus, could be used in future research with this unique population. Coaches, practitioners, and researchers should attend to the ways that coaches appraise and cope with stressors to facilitate their adaptation to the potentially stressful nature of coaching at the highest levels
Getting to the heart of the matter: a diary study of swimmers' appraisals of organisational stressors.
Get PDFWe explored sport performers' cognitive appraisals of organisational stressors. The relevant demands and transactional alternatives that athletes experience in relation to the situational properties were identified. Thirteen national standard swimmers completed semi-structured, interval-contingent daily diaries for a 28-day period. A combination of inductive and deductive content analysis was used to organise and analyse the diary entries with a focus on the following areas: organisational stressors, their underlying situational properties, and the swimmers' transactional alternatives. One hundred and thirty-one of the organisational stressors were appraised as threat, 41 as challenge, and 83 as harm/loss. Support was found for the majority of Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) situational properties with the only exception being temporal uncertainty. Imminence was associated with the greatest number of threat appraisals (47), novelty was associated with the greatest number of challenge appraisals (17), and duration was associated with the greatest number of harm/loss appraisals (22). It is concluded that appraisal plays a pivotal role in sport performers' experiences of their organisational environment. Swimmers' transactional alternatives are influenced by the situational properties of the stressors encountered
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Getting to the heart of the matter: An examination of swimmers’ appraisals of organizational stressors.
No full textCognitive appraisal is the intra-individual mechanism that lies at "the theoretical heart of psychological stress" (Lazarus, 1999, p. 61). It has been suggested that further research is needed to explore the explanatory potential of cognitive appraisal and its role in the organizational stress process in athletes (Fletcher, Hanton, & Mellalieu, 2006). Therefore, this study explored sport performers' cognitive appraisals of organizational stressors. More specifically, the situational properties underlying stressors and the transactional alternatives (stress appraisals) that 13 national standard swimmers experienced in relation to each property were investigated. Data were collected and analyzed using daily diaries over a 28-day period of training and competition. The results reveal that swimmers appraise a wide range of organizational stressors in different ways and that they appear to experience both challenge and threat states in response to similar or different situations. Furthermore, support was found for the majority of situational properties of stressors, thus extending general psychology literature to the sport psychology domain. Imminence had the greatest proportion of threat appraisals, novelty had the greatest proportion of challenge appraisals, and duration had the greatest proportion of harm/loss appraisals. By investigating the transactional alternatives experienced in relation to each situational property, this study furthers understanding of cognitive appraisal in sport performers and highlights its pivotal role in the organizational stress process. Furthermore, underlying properties may provide a universal understanding of the causes of stress in sport and may offer useful information for sport psychology consultants by serving as the basis for sport psychology interventions
Coping without doping: Exploring associations between psychological stress and chemical assistance in high performance rugby.
No full textOBJECTIVES: To explore associations between rugby players’ stressful experiences, their coping resources, and their use of chemical assistance.
DESIGN: A qualitative research design was adopted. Lazarus’ (1999) cognitive-motivational-relational theory was used as the theoretical lens to address the study objectives.
METHODS: Ten male (n=7) and female (n=3) high level rugby league and union players (Mage = 22.6, SD = 2.80) were interviewed using a semi-structured approach. A high level player was defined as an individual currently competing in national league one or above who had been competing at that level for at least five years. All of the interviews were conducted face-to-face and lasted between 25 and 98 minutes (Mlength = 52.40, SD = 27.54). Data was analysed using thematic analysis procedures.
RESULTS: All players reported lifetime use of nutritional supplements and that their consumption dovetailed stressful experiences in rugby. Some (n=5) of the participants suggested that they had used, or considered using, banned substances to cope with chronic stressors such as injury, pressure to perform, and pressure to increase muscle mass. Players were most likely to use supplements and or banned substances to cope with stressors when their personal and social coping resources had been depleted.
CONCLUSIONS: This study has shaped our understanding of the associations between psychological stress and chemical assistance in rugby. Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to develop coping interventions that focus on chronic stressors and to educate players about the risks involved with potentially maladaptive coping strategies, such as supplement and banned substance use
A review of stress appraising in sport performers: Where are we now and where do we go from here?
No full textRELATED THEME: Psychology for performance
BACKGROUND: According to transactional stress theory and sport psychology research, appraising is an important component of athletes’ stress transactions. This is because appraisals provide the basis for various psychological, physiological, emotional, and behavioural outcomes. Thus, a review of the sport psychology literature that focuses on appraising is required to facilitate a greater understanding of performers’ stress transactions.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this review was to critically examine the sport psychology research on appraising. In addition, the review aimed to draw on occupational, organizational, and general psychology research to explore four main areas: 1) appraising in stress transactions, 2) situational factors that influence appraising, 3) person factors that influence appraising, and 4) the notion of reappraisal.
METHOD: A thorough search of the literature was conducted to identify relevant studies. All of the studies were rigorously examined.
KEY POINTS: Understanding appraising is central to understanding stress transactions. However, little is known about appraising in sport and, in particular, the situational and personal factors that influence this process. The research does, however, suggest that situational clarity and mental toughness may help to prevent potential negative outcomes of stress transactions.
CONCLUSIONS: This review has enhanced understanding of performers’ stress transactions and identified gaps in the empirical literature. A substantial research agenda that addresses these gaps needs to be conducted before practical recommendations can be made. Non-sport research should be used to work toward a better understanding of the factors that influence athletes’ appraisals and the impact of these appraisals on sport performance
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