Athletes’ regulation of emotions experienced during competition: A naturalistic video-assisted study.

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the type and effectiveness of emotional regulation strategies used by table tennis players to manage their emotions experienced during competition. Using a naturalistic video-assisted approach, 30 interviews were conducted with 11 national table tennis players. Ten emotions were identified in the participants’ transcriptions: anger, anxiety, discouragement, disappointment, disgust, joy, serenity, relief, hope, and pride. Qualitative analyses of participants’ transcriptions revealed the emergence of 4 categories pertaining to emotion regulation: (a) regulation efforts comprising: (i) antecedent-focused regulation (e.g., attention deployment, cognitive change); (ii) response-focused regulation (e.g., behavioral regulation, physiological regulation); and (iii) social support; (b) automatic regulation; (c) no regulation; and (d) regulation effectiveness. Quantitative analyses of participants’ transcriptions revealed that: (a) attention deployment strategies emerged as the emotional regulation strategies the most used by participants; (b) some strategies were preferentially used to manage particular emotions during competition (e.g., physiological regulation strategies were essentially used to manage anxiety); (c) automaticity of emotion regulation was strongly associated with a high perceived effectiveness; (d) automatic strategies were associated with specific emotions such as joy, relief, or anger; (e) positive emotions were almost always managed well; (f) a large variability in the emotional regulation effectiveness of negative emotions appeared; disgust, discouragement, and anxiety being the emotions the least efficaciously regulated; and (g) athletes who rated selected emotional regulation strategies as effective really performed well and those who rated selected emotional regulation strategies as ineffective really failed to perform up to their potential.

Overcoming failure in sport: A self-forgiveness framework

“…Efforts to overcome the distressing experience of competitive failure may deliver short-term benefits, but limit the extent to which psychological needs are satisfied (Skinner et al, 2003), such as the basic need for competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Athletes may also be inadequately equipped with the repertoire of coping skills required to deal with the demands of competitive sport (Martinent, Ledos, Ferrand, Campo, & Nicolas, 2015), such as failure. Thus, competitors' coping efforts may be ineffective or even harmful.…”

Coach–Athlete Perceived Congruence Between Actual and Desired Emotions in Karate Competition and Training

“…Another applied recommendation from the present study is that video recording offers a practical way of accessing emotional states experienced during competition and training (cf: Bertram et al, 2007;Ives et al 2002;Martinent et al, 2015). Previous research to identify optimal emotional states for performance has tended to rely on past recollections of emotional events whereby athletes identify their feelings at a specific point in time (e.g., Robazza et al, 2004), including their best or worst performances (Hanin, 2010) without the use of visual prompts.…”

“…Therefore, a method that can record both intensity and frequency is warranted (Martinent, Campo, & Ferrand, 2012). Thirdly, Terry (1995) argued that while the pre-competition phase represents a practical opportunity for a sport psychologist to intervene or consult with athletes, coaches are in the unique position where they have multiple opportunities to regulate athletes' emotions throughout competition (Martinent, Ledos, Ferrand, Campo, & Nicolas, 2015). Therefore, assessing methods that utilize this advantage is important for sports psychology research.…”

“…Many researchers have argued that video recording is an effective practical tool for assessing emotional states experienced during competition (Bertram, Marteniuk, & Guadagnoli, 2007;Ives, Straub, & Shelley, 2002;Martinent et al, 2015). Previous research examining optimal emotional states for performance has tended to rely on past recollections of emotional events whereby athletes identify their feelings at a specific point in time (e.g., Dewar & Kavussanu, 2011;Nicholls, Polman, & Levy, 2011).…”

“…With the aid of video replay, participants view performance footage and describe or rate emotions experienced in real-time (cf. Campo et al, 2016;Martinent et al, 2015). This type of method to study interpersonal emotion regulation has been used in other areas of psychology to good effect (e.g., Butler, Hollenstein, Shoham, & Rohrbaugh, 2012;Parkinson & Simons, 2012).…”