A survey of “mental hardiness” and “mental toughness” in professional male football players

Abstract

BackgroundIt is not uncommon for chiropractors to be associated with sports teams for injury prevention, treatment, or performance enhancement. There is increasing acceptance of the importance of sports psychology in the overall management of athletes. Recent findings indicate mental hardiness can be determined reliably using specific self-assessment questionnaires. This study set out to investigate the hardiness scores of professional footballers and examine the correlation between two questionnaires. It also included a mental hardiness rating of players by two coaches, and examined differences in hardiness and mental toughness between national and international players.MethodsTwo self-assessment questionnaires (modified Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire [SMTQ-M] and Psychological Performance Inventory [PPI-A]) were completed by 20 male professional footballers. Two coaches, independently rated each player. A percentage score from each questionnaire was awarded each player and an average score was calculated ({SMTQ-M % + PPI-A %} ÷ 2). The PPI-A and SMTQ-M scores obtained for each player were analysed for correlation with Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Cohen’s kappa inter-reliability coefficient was used to determine agreement between coaches, and between the players’ hardiness scores and coaches’ ratings. The independent t-test was used to examine differences between national and international players.ResultsThe players’ scores obtained from PPI-A and SMTQ-M correlated well (r = 0.709, p < 0.001). The coaches ratings showed significant, weak to moderate agreement (Cohen's kappa = 0.33). No significant agreement was found between player self-assessments and coaches’ ratings.The average ({SMTQ-M % + PPI-A %} ÷ 2) mean score was 77% (SD = 7.98) with international players scoring 7.4% (p = 0.04) higher than non-international players.ConclusionsThe questionnaires (SMTQ-M and PPI-A) correlated well in their outcome scores. These findings suggest that coaches moderately agree when assessing the level of mental hardiness of football players. There was no agreement between player self-assessment and ratings by coaches. Footballers who play or had played for national teams achieved slightly higher mental hardiness scores.Either questionnaire can offer the clinician a cost-effective, valuable measure of an individual’s psychological attributes, which could be relevant within the wider context of bio-psycho-social model of care.

Psychological characteristics in women football players: Skills, mental toughness, and anxiety

“…This last work used a different mental toughness index questionnaire (Gucciardi, Hanton, Gordon, Mallett & Temby, ), and indeed this variety of instruments used is one of the main problems in studying MT (Cowden, ). However, the questionnaire used in the present study, SMTQ, has shown a good correlation ( r < 0.709, p < 0.001) with other similar instruments such as the Psychological Performance Inventory (Loehr, ), with men football players who play or had played for national teams scoring slightly higher on the mental hardiness scores (Wieser & Thiel, ).…”

“…It should be noted, however, that MT may be influenced by other psychological attributes such as task and ego orientation (Álvarez, Walker & Castillo, ). With respect to studies carried out on women footballers (Danielsen et al ., ; Guillen & Santana, ; Wieser & Thiel, ), there seems to be a relationship between MT and performance, although this relationship is influenced by the player's level and age. Again, which criterion is chosen for “performance” might influence that relationship (Cowden, ).…”

Mental toughness latent profiles in endurance athletes

“…Although the eight indicator variables from the three tools were significantly correlated with correlations ranging from 0.18 to 0.63, there was no evidence of multicollinearity as measured by the variance inflation factors which were all less than 2.39 in a regression model [ 49 ]. The SMTQ and PPI-A have been used in combination in other studies [ 15 , 18 ].…”

“…Components of overall MT include a combination of attributes, characteristics, and strategies[ 13 ]: goal setting, visualization, stress management, emotion control, confidence, persistence, rebounding from failure, and positive-cognition [ 14 , 15 ]. An effort to understand the factors that comprise MT in athletes and how these factors affect performance outcomes led to the development of multi-dimensional questionnaires [ 12 , 16 , 17 ].…”

Mental Toughness and Success in Sport: A Review and Prospect

“…Among those that conducted competitive standard comparisons using total MT (N = 9) and subcomponent MT (N = 7), significant differences in total MT or at least one subcomponent were reported in 66.7% [8,29,30,35,37,38] and 71.4% [8,30,35,38,39] of the studies, respectively. In each case, the MT of athletes participating at higher levels of competition was higher.…”