Differences of competitive stress and coping strategies among sporting men and women

The aim of this research was to identify the differences of competitive stress and coping strategies among the sporting men and women. The data for this research was obtained through 2012 Lithuanian Athletics Championships of Youth. The sample consisted of 116 athletes (60 male and 56 female), age range 17 – 21 years old. Methods of this study were as follows: analysis of special literature, survey by means of questionnaires, mathematical statistics (Cronbach Alpha, Student’s t test and χ2 analysis). In this investigation there were designed and applied two scales: Athletes’ Perceived Competitive Stress Scale (for estimating the intensity of stress), and Athletes’ Coping Strategies Scale (for estimating the coping strategy used during the contest). In this study there was used Anshel (2001) classification of stress coping strategies. According to this classification, during the competition athletes use these coping strategies: approach-behaviour, approach-cognitive, avoidant-behaviour and avoidant-cognitive. Approach-behaviour coping strategy consists of an overt action in response to stressful event and includes confrontation with stressor, soliciting of information and social support, speaking about emotions. Approach-cognitive strategy reflects activity of disagreeable information reception. Examples include thinking about stressor, analyzing, planning of effective response. Avoidant-behaviour strategy consists of conscious actions designed for physically removing oneself from source of stress. This strategy involves the engagement to another activity, avoiding of stressful situations. Avoidant-cognitive coping strategy reflects conscious efforts to retreat psychologically from the stress source and create the conditions helping to keep the attention and start another task. It includes the psychological retraction, disregard, reinterpretation of stressor. Gender differences of competitive stress and coping strategies is an important scientific problem. Aiming at solving this problem, two objectives were risen: 1) to identify the differences of perceived competitive stress among sporting men and women; 2) to identify the differences of coping style among sporting men and women during the contest. It was hypothesized that: 1) the level of men’s perceived competitive stress is lower than women’s; 2) sporting men and women use different coping strategies to cope with competitive stress: men more frequently use approach coping strategies (approach-behaviour, approach-cognitive) and women more frequently use avoidant strategies (avoidant-behaviour, avoidant-cognitive). It was found that the level of men’s perceived competitive stress is lower than of women (p=0,024). Data analysis of this study showed that men and women use different coping strategies during the competition. It was found that men more frequently use approach-behaviour (χ2=3,12; p=0,04) and approach-cognitive (χ2=3,04; p=0,03), and women more frequently use avoidant-behaviour (χ2=4,71; p=0,03), avoidant-cognitive (χ2=4,18; p=0,04) coping strategies during the contest. Hypotheses were confirmed. Further research should analyze not only impact of gender for athletes’ coping, but also other factors, like sources of stress, cognitive appraisal, athletes’ age and cultural differences