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1
COPING PROCESSES IN SPORT
Hugh Richards, The University of Edinburgh
Unless he is already doomed, fortune favours the man who keeps his nerve.
(from Beowulf, 8th century [modified quote])
Introduction
In this chapter theoretical and empirical developments in coping are examined. The chapter presents an appraisal-based model to illustrate the fundamental relationship between emotion and coping. The interactions between these key constructs offer a comprehensive explanation of how performers respond to the combined challenges and threats of competition. Adopting a perspective of coping as a process (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) selected recent empirical research is reviewed to summarize current understanding of coping in sport, the impact of relevant individual differences such as optimism, and approaches to train coping and assess coping effectiveness. Throughout, the chapter explains some of the key considerations in coping research in terms of design and measurement, and it concludes with suggested future developments for sport coping research.
Coping and sport performance
Coping can be explained as any changes in thoughts or behaviours that are made to manage the perceived demands of a situation (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Coping lies at the very heart of competitive sport, and the way in which performers cope with challenges, success and failure provides the human story that brings spectators to modern professional sport. Consider for example the Tour de France champion, enduring three weeks of riding over 3,600 kilometres before claiming his prize. Or the Formula 1 driver, sustaining gravitational forces of up to 5G and average heart rates of 170 bpm whilst driving at speeds that can reach 350 kph. Or the Olympic sprinter for whom the outcome of hours of training, years of competition, a professional life and sometimes their very identity, all hang, ready to be judged by millions, on less than 10 seconds. When performers produce results in situations like these, questions of interest are often not just about their skill or physical prowess, but also about how they coped with such demands.
For sport psychologists this key question has been unpacked in several ways. What do we mean by coping? What exactly are performers coping with? What different kinds of coping responses are used? Are some types of coping better than others? Are some people better at coping than others? How can performers be helped to cope better? This chapter summarizes the current, empirically based knowledge and understanding in response to each of these questions. Scientific understanding of coping is based on work emanating from other areas in psychology. From the 1960s and 1970s research focused on coping with issues associated with illnesses, medical conditions and treatments, dying and bereavement as well as professional stressors such as combat stress in the military and occupational stress and burnout. More recently sport-based research on coping has developed, so that there is significant and sufficient literature on coping in sport to warrant specific reviews (Nicholls and Polman, 2007) and book chapters (Richards, 2004, 2011) on the subject. Although this chapter focuses on coping in sport it also draws from evidence and ideas from the broader psychology literature. The chapter therefore is not a systematic review of all sport coping research, or one that is limited to exclusively sports-based research. Instead it is focused on providing answers to the important issues identified by the questions at the start of this paragraph.
What is coping?
Coping has traditionally been studied using two approaches, which are described as coping style and coping process approaches (Lazarus, 1993). Coping style is defined as âthe preferred set of coping strategies that remain relatively fixed across time and circumstancesâ (Carver, Scheier and Weintraub, 1989, p. 270). These authors distinguish between this definition of coping style and one in which personality characteristics, such as monitoring (seeking information) or blunting (distancing self from information), might predispose individuals to cope in certain ways (Kaissidis-Rodafinos, Anshel and Porter, 1997). In contrast the coping process approach is defined as the âprocess of constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands or conflicts appraised as taxing or exceeding oneâs resourcesâ (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984, p. 141).
Definitions of coping have consistently emphasized that it involves deliberate and effortful responses, and have described coping as âefforts to manageâ (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984, p. 141), âcognitions and behaviors ⌠consciously decidedâ (Cox and Ferguson, 1991, p. 23), âa response aimedâ (Snyder and Dinoff, 1999, p. 5), and âa deliberate process involving thoughts and actionsâ (Kowalski and Crocker, 2001, p. 136). Some studies are not consistent with this view: for example Gould, Eklund and Jackson (1993a) found successful (medal-winning) Olympic wrestlers reported their coping was well practised, internalized and automatic. In psychological terms an automatic skill is one that requires little mental effort (Schmidt, 1991) or working memory. However, confusion about automaticity of coping in this case may have arisen from taking verbatim comments from interviews with athletes, for whom the term âautomaticâ might have simply meant well-learned responses. It is logical that any skill must be well learned and practised to be effectively used in time urgent, pressurized situations.
Some responses, for example defence mechanisms such as repression, occur to protect the individual, and are not under conscious control. Responses not consciously recognized by the person are categorically distinct from conscious coping. Furthermore such responses require investigation with methods quite different from the self-report that characterizes the vast majority of sport coping research. Therefore within this chapter, and in keeping with recent reviews in this area (Carver and Connor-Smith, 2010) the definition of coping adopted excludes automatic and involuntary responses.
Coping occurs in response to perceived changes in the environment or self that are evaluated as requiring alteration. Based on established theory (Lazarus, 1999), coping can be best described through an integrated model in which appraisal, coping and emotion can be identified and their relationship to each other illustrated. However, an analytical model can fail to adequately illustrate the interconnectivity that exists between the different factors. So in reviewing and using this model the reader is asked to consider the following two key points. First, the model separates out constituent parts, but in reality performersâ thoughts, emotions and responses are blended together. Second, whilst the model appears like a circuitry diagram that might suggest a temporal organisation, the speed with which thoughts operate means that absolute time is not relevant to discriminating the processes. The model is shown in Figure 1.1.
Central to the model is the concept of cognitive appraisal (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), widely accepted as an explanation for the transaction that occurs between person and environment. Coping occurs following primary appraisal in which a situation is identified as relevant to the individual and presenting threat, harm, challenge or loss and following a second appraisal where an imbalance between the demands of the situation and their resources is perceived. It should be noted that recently it has been questioned whether challenge should be considered a type of stress (Blascovich, 2008; Carver and Connor-Smith, 2010). The outcomes of the two appraisal stages are significant determinants of whether an individual applies effort to cope with the perceived demand (Aldwin, 1994). Despite their names, primary and secondary appraisals are thought to occur relatively âinstantaneouslyâ (Lazarus, 1999). Furthermore, Lazarus suggests that the emotion that results from appraisal is part of this instantaneous process.
FIGURE 1.1 Model of appraisal, coping and emotion in sport
Understanding how performers appraise stressors is vital to understand the coping response. For example, Hoar, Crocher, Holt, and Tamminen (2010) suggest inconsistencies in findings on gender differences in coping may be due to a failure to assess appraisal. A further important additional component within this model, Model of appraisal, coping and emotion in sport which differs from previous models (e.g. Hardy, Jones and Gould, 1996), is the emphasis that the demands are perceived by the individual. This is central to a transactional view of stress that proposes that two individuals might perceive the same situation quite differently, and that consequently this might have different effects.
The transaction that occurs through appraisal is important to the complete model, and research that assumes a named event, for example the Olympics, presents the same meaning to all athletes, has significant limitations. Consider the difference between two hypothetical athletes, one of whom is returning to the Olympics as a reigning champion and clear favourite who has competed at the top level for ten years, whereas the other athlete is a complete newcomer to international-level competition, a surprise selection with no previous form or expectation about their performance. It would seem likely that the relational meaning of competing in the Olympics might be very different to each of these athletes. For the first athlete there might be pressure to perform and maintain the existing position as world number one, as was found in a study on successful athletes (Kreiner-Phillips and Orlick, 1993). The situation might present little opportunity to increase standing but represent a real threat of losing that position. In contrast, the inexperienced performer might be more likely to perceive the situation as one in which there was little to lose (low threat) and everything to gain (challenge). That an event can be appraised quite differently and represent two different meanings to two performers, demonstrates the crucial role appraisal has in relation to emotion and coping. Research designs that assume that an event (such as the Olympics) or an overt outcome (such as win/loss, or a medal) represent similar experiences to participants are inherently flawed.
The position of the psycho-physiological stress state is also different from other, more linear models. In this model it is not placed between appraisal and coping but is influenced by many factors within the model. Also included within the model is a âno copingâ option that might follow from appraising that a situation is not relevant and requires no response. No coping is categorically distinct from any coping, which most definitions agree involves âeffortâ. Finally, it is clear from the literature that dimensions of personality are likely to affect all stages of this model (see Table 1.1 for examples and suggested elements of the model to which they are thought to relate).
Recent empirical research on the two main approaches to coping in sport, style and process, is discussed in the following sections, leading to the progressive view that reconciliation between these approaches is possible, justified and necessary to develop our understanding of coping. However, before moving to this section, we also need to answer the question of what it is exactly that sports individuals are coping with. The answer lies in the relationship between coping and emotion.
Coping and emotion
The unique focus of this book is that coping and emotion in sport are considered throughout in relation to each other. Relating coping with emotion is not a new concept; Folkman and Lazarus (1988) stated that coping affects emotion just as emotion affects coping. Furthermore in his cognitive-motivational-relational theory (CMR) of emotion, Lazarus (1999) presents emotion as the âsuperordinate system that includes motivation (an individualâs goals), appraisal, stress, emotion and coping as component partsâ, and continued by emphasizing that âcoping, along with appraisal is, in effect, a mediator of the emotional reactionâ (p. 101).
TABLE 1.1 Examples of influence of specific personality variables on different components of the model of appraisal, coping and emotion in sport
| Component | Personality variables | Theoretical link |
| Perceived demands | Repression
Trait-anxiety | Repressors show different
attentional patterns to threatening
stimuli from non-repressors
(Langens and Morth, 2003). |
| | Trait-anxious more likely to
interpret neutral stimuli negatively
(Eysenck, 1997). |
| Appraisal | Optimism
Locus of control | Positive expectancies and
perception that one can influence
situation influence decisions on
coping (Cox and Ferguson, 1991; Grove and Heard, 1997). |
Psycho-physiological stress
state | Trait-anxiety | Heightened response in stressful
situations (Eysenck, 1992). |
| Emotion | Emotional control | Differentiated emotional response
(Roger and Najarian, 1989). |
| Coping | Learned
resourcefulness | Propensity to delay gratification
and to maintain coping efforts for
longer term gains (Rosenbaum,
1988). |
A further link between emotion and coping is also apparent in relation to different types of coping. One distinction found in the coping literature (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985) is between coping responses designed to deal with the problem or to address emotions. However, some authors (Cox and Ferguson, 1991) perceive that addressing emotion is the primary purpose of all coping efforts, making the link between coping and emotion relevant to all instances of coping. Empirical support for the relationship between coping and emotion was provided by Pensgaard and Duda (2003), who found that the coping effectiveness reported by Olympic athletes was significantly and positively related to positive emotions.
A final link between emotion and coping is based on shared resources. The focus of coping in this chapter is on voluntary, conscious and effortful responses. Coping responses, defined in these terms, demand mental activity that must take place within the architecture of a cognitive processing system such as working memory (assumed to take place primarily in the prefrontal cortices; Kane and Engle, 2005). Furthermore this activity also places demand on resources necessary for controlling (selecting) attention and resisting interference (Jonides and Nee, 2006). Theoretical and empirical evidence links both coping responses and emotion to the same expendable psychological resource, usually considered in relation to self-regulation (Baumeister and Heatherton, 1996; Richards and Gross, 2000). What this means in practice is that a performer who experiences emotion, such as frustration due to their immediate goals being blocked, has reduced resources available to cope with subsequent situations.
Therefore the relation between coping and emotion can be considered to be multifaceted. There is a theoretical link through the hypothesized process combining coping, appraisal and emotion that suggests coping impacts on emotion and that emotion, through perception, impacts on coping (Folkman and Lazarus, 1988; Lazarus, 1999). Coping is also linked to emotion, as empirical evidence shows that emotion is a primary orientation for coping efforts (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985; Cox and Ferguson, 1991). Finally empirical evidence supports the view that both coping responses and emotional regulation are connected in that they draw on a single psychological resource. Interdependence occurs because this resource is limited, and depletion, through any activity such as emotional control, physical effort, thought control, persistence or suppression, will temporarily reduce ability in any subsequent attempts that also make demands on the same resource (Schmeichel and Baumeister, 2004).
Recognizing the interrelationship between coping and emotion is important to prov...
