The Research On College Athletes' Competitive Stress Coping Processes

Three studies were included in this paper to explore the process of competitive stress coping of college athletes.In study one, the critical event interview was applied, through detailed analysis of the interview data, a significant difference was found between individual-item and collective-item athletes' primary stressors, and a difference also existed between their cognitive apprails and coping strategies following their different stressors.In study two, Athletes'Stressor Survey was used to investigate 167 college athletes'competitive stressors. The results was showed that the most frequently chosen stressors of the individual-item athletes were: the competition is too important to me, psychological and physical errors during competition, and the rival's performance is better than me. While the collective-item athletes only differed under the condition in which the rival's performance is better than me, instead they chose the bad call by the referee. Besides, a significant discrepancy was existed between different skill levels, items and sex.In study three, the Scenario Test of College Athletes'Competitive Stress Coping Processes was used to explore the cognitive appraisals, coping strategies, coping effect and their relations on college athletes, when they faced the three specific stressors. The result was revealed a notable difference between male and female in individual-item athletes. While the collective-item athletes were showing differences in sex and skill level. Additionally, there was notable interactions among sex and skill level for collective-item athletes. Stepwise discriminant analysis method was also used in the study, to predict the coping strategies by using stressor's and cognitive appraisal's observational variables, and to anticipate the coping effect by using the variables of stressor, cognitive appraisal and coping strategies. Finally, the whole coping process of college athletes was examined with SEM method. From all the studies above, we could find the important role of cognitive appraisal in coping process, and the necessity to study coping under specific stress scenarios.