Abstract
Psychological coping skills in sport are believed to be central to athlete performance and well-being. This study examined the relationship between the perceived motivational climate in elite collegiate sport teams and player psychological coping skills use. Division I athletes (N = 467) completed a questionnaire examining their perceptions of how caring, task-, and ego-involving their teams were and their use of sport specific psychological coping skills (i.e., coping with adversity, peaking under pressure, goal setting/mental preparation, concentration, freedom from worry, confidence/achievement motivation, and coachability). Structural equation modeling revealed positive relationships between perceptions of a task-involving climate and confidence/achievement motivation (β = 0.42) and goal setting/mental preparation (β = 0.27). Caring climate perceptions were positively associated with coach-ability (β = 0.34). These findings illustrate how encouraging athletes and coaches to create a caring, task-involving climate may facilitate athletes’ use of psychological coping skills and set athletes up to perform their best and have a positive sporting experience.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 334-350 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported by a research grant from the Big XII. The authors would like to thank Jordan Haberer for his assistance with data collection, the Big XII conference for their willingness to assist with the study, and the Big XII Faculty Fellowship.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Human Kinetics, Inc.
Keywords
- achievement goal perspective theory
- caring
- collegiate athletes
- Division I athletes
- mental skills
- task-involving climate