The Effect Of Mindsets,sport Self-Efficacy On Self-Handicapping And Psychological Training Among Athletes

Some athletes often appear self-handicapping behavior before major competitions,that is,in the performance situation,an individual takes an action or choice to externalize the cause of failure in order to avoid or reduce the negative impact brought by poor performance.In the short term,self-handicapping can effectively prevent individuals from being judged for lack of ability,but it may affect their performance.In the long term,it will also affect individual achievement development and self-worth.It is a kind of maladaptive coping strategy.Therefore,it is very necessary to relieve athletes’ self-handicapping tendency for their sports performance and mental health.The factors that affect athletes’ self-handicapping include personality,trait and plasticity factors.However,few studies have explored self-handicapping from the perspective of cognition of ability,and based on this,this paper suggests that mindsets(belief in ability)may also be an important factor affecting self-handicapping.The mindsets of athletes is their belief about whether athletic ability is fixed or malleable,which can be divided into fixed mindset and growth mindset.And the growth mindset means that abilities are changeable and can be improved through learning and hard work.The fixed mindset,on the other hand,means that abilities are fixed and determined by gift.If individuals have a fixed mindset,then it is important to prove that they are competent,and individuals may engage in selfhandicapping strategies when they cannot prove that they are competent.Mindsets is the meaning system of people’s understanding of human attributes such as ability.The meaning system acting on self-handicapping also needs to go through a cognitive process,and self-efficacy is a cognitive process of ability.Sport self-efficacy is the evaluation of athletes’ confidence in their ability or skill to complete sports tasks.Athletes choose behaviors based on their cognition,feeling and motivation,and then decide whether to adopt self-handicapping strategy.Therefore,mindsets may influence self-handicapping through the mediating effect of self-efficacy.From the perspective of ability,this study explores the mechanism which athletes’ mindsets affect self-handicapping by influencing sports self-efficacy.At the same time,according to the theory of mindsets,psychological training is carried out for endurance athletes to improve their mindsets,improve sport self-efficacy,reduce selfhandicapping,and promote sports performance.This study is mainly divided into two parts.The first part is to investigate the mechanism of the influence of mindsets on sports self-efficacy and self-handicapping by conducting a questionnaire survey on a sports professional college and provincial sports teams,and verify the mediating role of sport self-efficacy between mindsets and self-handicapping.In Study 2,based on the results of study 1,10 race walkers at a provincial sports team were selected for multiple baseline across-individuals study,and a set of mindsets training program was designed for endurance athletes to conduct psychological training,and the effectiveness of psychological training in improving mindsets,enhancing sport self-efficacy,reducing self-handicapping and improving sports performance was verified.This study draws the following results :(1)The athletes’ self-handicapping is at a moderately low level;self-handicapping did not shows significant differences in gender,age group,training duration,sports grade,and sports program.(2)The growth mindset of athletes is at a high level;The growth mindset of young athletes is significantly higher than that of young athletes,the level of the progress dimension of the long-term training athletes is significantly lower than that of the short-term training athletes,and the growth mindset of the high-grade athletes is significantly lower than that of the medium and low grade athletes.(3)The fixed mindset of athletes is at a a moderately low level;The fixed mindset of juvenile athletes is significantly lower than that of athletes at other ages,the fixed mindset of long-term training athletes is significantly higher than that of short-term and medium-term training athletes,and the fixed mindset of low-grade athletes is significantly lower than that of medium and high sports grade athletes.(4)Athletes have a moderately high sport self-efficacy,and females have lower sport、self-efficacy than males.(5)Athletes’ growth mindset can positively predicts sports self-efficacy and negatively predicts self-handicapping;Fixed mindset can predict sport self-efficacy negatively and self-handicapping positively.Sport self-efficacy can negatively predict self-handicapping.(6)Sport self-efficacy mediates the relationship between growth mindset and selfhandicapping,and sport self-efficacy mediates the relationship between fixed mindset and self-handicapping.(7)Mindsets training has achieved moderate effect and has moderate effect continuity,which can improve growth mindset,reduce fixed mindset,improve sports self-efficacy,reduce self-handicapping,and improve sports performance.In conclusion,this study concludes that athletes’ mindsets impact selfhandicapping through the mediating effect of sport self-efficacy.Mindsets training for athletes can effectively increase growth mindset,reduce fixed mindset,improve sport self-efficacy,reduce self-handicapping,and improve sports performance.