Symposium on Success under stress: An individual, team, and coaching perspective on functioning under pressure

When the stakes are high, athletes experience changes in their affective, cognitive, and behavioral functioning. In some sports teams, these changes result in increased levels of anxiety and in performance decrements compared to low-pressure situations. In other sports teams, the athletes are well able to maintain an adaptive affective and cognitive state and to uphold their performance level under pressure. This inevitably raises the question: What characterizes the latter athletes and teams, and what makes them pressure-resilient? The objective of this symposium is to provide a comprehensive overview of current research efforts aiming at answering these questions from an individual, a team, and a coaching perspective. Starting with an interactionist view on individuals performing under pressure, we will exemplify the situational relevance of personality traits and their activation by subclinical narcissism and perfectionism. Subsequently, with a focus on team-members’ affective and motivational states under stress, we will address team-influences on precompetitive states and the qualifying role of contextual factors. Third, at the team level, we will present what makes a team resilient to pressure demands and adds to our relatively small knowledge of what elite team coaches can do to optimize their athletes’ motivation and resilience. Finally, we will conclude by demonstrating the importance of coaches’ support and perceived justice when correcting athletes’ mistakes or failures with respect to building a resilient sports team. In short, this symposium integrates individual, team, and coaching perspectives to provide novel insights into athletes’ and teams’ functioning under pressure, identifying important variables that ensure success under stress.status: publishe