The Coping Strategies Used by Young Tunisian Athletes in Individual and Collective Sports

Abstract

The objective of this study was to discover the repertoire of coping strategies used by young Tunisian male and female athletes in individual and team sports when competing in their sport, and to examine the effect of gender and type of sport on these strategies. A total of 917 young Tunisian athletes including 349 female athletes and 568 male athletes, aged 14 to 19, with an average age of 15.63 ± 1.5 years, participated in our study. Participants were invited to respond to the Arabic version of the Competitive Sport Adaptation Strategy Inventory to assess their coping repertoire. The results revealed that factors, such as gender, and type of sport, influenced the coping repertoire among young athletes. In the inter-personal and intra-personal context, young athletes used a wide variety of coping strategies, all of which were task-oriented and disengagement-oriented.

1. Introduction

Stress and coping represent a dynamic and reciprocal bipolarity that can be modeled and understood based on the cognitive–motivational–relational (CMRT) theory of emotion [1,2]. This conceptual framework is commonly employed to improve and enhance athletic performance and has been supported by a growing body of scholarly research in the field of sports psychology [3,4].

Stress is a process that occurs as a result of a series of transactions, exchanges and exposures, between the athlete and the surrounding environment [5,6,7]. Over the past two decades, researchers in sports psychology have focused on examining different stressful events [8,9], including the competitive situation. Competitive stress can be defined as an ongoing transaction between an athlete and the environmental demands associated primarily and directly with competitive performance. The ability to cope with competitive stress reactions mainly depends on the athlete [10,11,12]. Some athletes face the problem they encounter directly and act quite rationally, while others disengage and distract from the stressful situation. The coping process is a major component in dealing with competitive transactional stress, defined as an athlete’s ability to cope with their environmental stimuli and personal responses. As previously mentioned, coping is a dynamic mechanism that changes according to the competitive situation and represents a good indicator of performance [3,4].

The ability to cope with competitive stressors can contribute to successful performance outcomes [13,14,15]. In particular, athletes who focus on task-oriented coping strategies often achieve positive performance [16,17,18,19], while athletes who focus on coping strategies geared towards disengagement or distraction generally obtain negative performance [20].

Identifying the sources of stress encountered by athletes and the different influences they exert on the use of a particular coping strategy is a major and currently debated research question. Understanding why and how athletes adopt a given coping strategy is also of paramount importance to optimize athletes’ performance [21]. The wide range of coping strategies used by athletes can be explained by accounting for the different types of stressors, both at the intra- and inter-personal levels [21].

These strategies are generally categorized as problem-centered, emotion-centered, or avoidance coping [22,23,24,25,26]. Another alternative classification lists coping strategies as being task-oriented, oriented on disengagement, or distraction [27,28]. Recently, Nicholls et al. (2016) [26] presented a classification of coping strategies according to the magnitude of their directions: control, internal regulation, and disengagement of the objective.

The regulation of emotions can occur at the level of personal contexts, generally characterized by limited resources, in which individuals control their emotions (the so-called models of self-regulation and self-control) [29]. The regulation of inter-personal emotions in a collective context [30,31] may include efforts to improve well-being and manage stress in a collective way [32].

The majority of studies in sports psychology have focused primarily on the sources of stress experienced by athletes and how they cope individually [33]. However, it is clear that performance in team sports is part of an eminently social context made up of numerous interactions, exchanges, exposures, and other transactions. It, therefore, appears essential to understand how athletes interact within the surrounding environment and to what extent the processes from coping to stress are shared in the context of performance.

The same source of stress can be shared between several individuals of the same group. This so-called common stress [34] can establish collective coping responses [35,36,37,38,39,40], the adoption of which results in the cohesion and commitment of the group in a series of cognitive and behavioral efforts maintaining the social relationships during stressful episodes and events.

Coping strategies will also be affected by the constraints and opportunities offered by cultural thinking, social reflections, type of personality, as well as gender [41,42,43].

Gender is another key factor in studying coping strategies in competitive contexts. This factor plays an important role in recognizing the sources of stress experienced by athletes during sports competitions. Female athletes often use different coping strategies than their male counterparts. Investigations show that men score higher than women on problem-oriented strategies [44]. In another study, women used a variety of problem-oriented strategies.

Some studies have explicitly focused on team sports and have identified specific stressors assessed on an inter-personal basis. Other studies support the idea that stressors commonly identified at the individual level also appear to be determined at the team level. According to these studies, the type of sport has been identified as a factor affecting the perception of stress and influencing the process of adaptation in both intra- and inter-personal contexts.

The objective of this study, which targeted Tunisian athletes engaged in individual and team sports, was (i) to investigate perceived stressors at the intra- and inter-personal level, and (ii) to deepen knowledge on adaptation processes by exploring the influence of factors related to gender and type of sports discipline.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants

A total of 917 Tunisian male and female athletes voluntarily participated in our study. They are between 14 and 19 years old (15.63 ± 1.5 years), of which 349 (38.1%) female athletes had an average age of 16.09 years (SD: 1.39) and 568 (61.9%) male athletes had an average age 15.34 years (SD: 1.5). Our participants were competing at the national level, of which, 646 were from team sports and 271 from individual sports. The athletes from team sport included: soccer (n = 376), basketball (n = 59), handball (n = 158), and volleyball (n = 53). For individual sports, our athletes were from: athletics (n = 78), gymnastics (n = 36), Taekwondo (n = 61), boxing (n = 24), karate (n = 24), kickboxing (n = 21), Kyokushinkai (n = 21), and canoe kayak (n = 30). Our participants had an average training of 8 h per week and played in 12 or more competitions during the season.

2.2. Measures

In this study, the measurements were taken by the Arabic version of the Inventory of coping strategies in sports competition (ISCCS; by Hajji et al., in 2016), validated from the original version of Gaudreau and Blondin (2002). The ISCCS (Hajji et al., 2016) includes 39 items and 10 subscales: Mental imagery, Thought control, Effort expenditure, Seeking support, Relaxation, Logical analysis, Venting of unpleasant emotions, Disengagement, Social withdrawal, and Mental distraction. These 10 subscales are grouped under three main scales: task-oriented coping, disengagement, and distraction. The athlete’s response is given on a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (not at all used) to 5 (used very frequently).

2.3. Procedures

The managers and coaches of the participating teams were informed about the aim of the research project and were requested to participate. The tests took place in the competitive phase of the season, 1 to 2 h after the competition. Our participants and/or their guardians signed a consent form and were free to withdraw their participation at any stage. They were informed about the nature and purpose of the study. Data was considered and handled confidentially and strictly used for research purposes only. The duration of testing was 10 to 15 min.

The study protocol was reviewed in-depth and fully approved by the Ethical Committee of the Institute of Physical Education and Sports Gafsa, Tunisia (protocol number ID IRB00000637-06). This study was conducted in accordance with the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki.

2.4. Data Analysis Plan

The various statistical parameters were calculated using the “IBM SPSS Statistics 25” software. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were applied to reveal the scores of first- and second-order coping in young athletes in relation to gender, sport type, and sport discipline factors. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was applied to examine the effect of gender on the coping repertoire used by young athletes. The effect size was calculated using Wilks’ lambda distribution to account for the significance of the results and to report only significant interactions. For all statistical analyses, p ≤ 0.05 was adopted as the level of significance.

3. Results

3.1. The Effect of Gender and Type of Sport on Coping Strategies Used by Young Athletes

Analysis of variance confirmed the effect of gender (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.780 < 1; D = 25.507; p < 0.05) and type of sport (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.817 < 1; D = 20.24; p < 0.05), on the coping strategies used by young Tunisian athletes (See

Table 1. The effect of the interaction between gender and type of sport factors on the coping strategies used by young Tunisian athletes.

Effect		Value	D	Degrees of Freedom of the Hypothesis	Degrees of Freedom Error	p-Value
Gender	Trace of Pillai	0.220	25.507 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Wilks’ lambda	0.780	25.507 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Hotelling trace	0.282	25.507 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Roy’s biggest root	0.282	25.507 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
Type of sport	Trace of Pillai	0.183	20.240 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Wilks’ lambda	0.817	20.240 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Hotelling trace	0.224	20.240 b	10.000	904.000	0.000
	Roy’s biggest root	0.224	20.240 b	10.000	904.000	0.000

b. Exact statistic.

).

For the gender variable, the coping strategies involved were (

Table 2. Inter-subject interaction effects between gender and type of sport factors and the coping strategies used by young Tunisian athletes.

Source	Dependent Variable	Sum of Type III Squares	Degrees of Freedom	Mean of Squares	F	p-Value
Gender	Mental imagery	0.044	1	0.044	0.072	0.789
	Effort expenditure	5.610	1	5.610	4.607	0.032
	Thought control	94.772	1	94.772	95.028	0.000
	Seeking support	1.109	1	1.109	1.301	0.254
	Relaxation	0.854	1	0.854	1.225	0.269
	Logical analysis	20.150	1	20.150	30.713	0.000
	Venting of unpleasant emotions	99.539	1	99.539	118.660	0.000
	Disengagement	26.037	1	26.037	25.975	0.000
	Social withdrawal	0.014	1	0.014	0.015	0.904
	Mental distraction	1.124	1	1.124	1.002	0.317
Type of sport	Mental imagery	3.850	1	3.850	6.367	0.012
	Effort expenditure	6.991	1	6.991	5.741	0.017
	Thought control	12.259	1	12.259	12.293	0.000
	Seeking support	10.161	1	10.161	11.926	0.001
	Relaxation	53.341	1	53.341	76.496	0.000
	Logical analysis	4.430	1	4.430	6.752	0.010
	Venting of unpleasant emotions	35.300	1	35.300	42.081	0.000
	Disengagement	36.813	1	36.813	36.725	0.000
	Social withdrawal	8.425	1	8.425	8.898	0.003
	Mental distraction	22.964	1	22.964	20.466	0.000

):

-

Effort expenditure (F = 5.61; p-value < 0.05),

-

Thought control (F = 94.77; p-value < 0.05),

-

Logical analysis (F = 20.15; p-value < 0.05),

-

Venting of unpleasant emotions (F = 99.54; p-value < 0.05),

-

Disengagement (F = 26.04; p-value < 0.05).

For the type of sport variable, the coping strategies involved were (Table 2):

-

Mental imagery (F = 9.37; p-value < 0.05),

-

Effort expenditure (F = 5.74; p-value < 0.05),

-

Thought control (F = 12.93; p-value < 0.05),

-

Seeking support (F = 11.93; p-value < 0.05),

-

Relaxation (F = 76.50; p-value < 0.05),

-

Logical analysis (F = 6.75; p-value < 0.05),

-

Venting of unpleasant emotions (F = 42.08; p-value < 0.05),

-

Disengagement (F = 36.72; p-value < 0.05),

-

Social withdrawal (F = 8.90; p-value < 0.05),

-

Mental distraction (F = 20.47; p-value < 0.05).

3.2. The Coping Scores among Young Athletes According to the Gender Factor

The highest first-order coping strategy scores in young male athletes were: Logical analysis (4.13 ± 0.78) and Thought control (4.07 ± 0.84).

The highest first-order coping strategy scores in young female athletes were: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.30 ± 0.81) and Disengagement (4.12 ± 0.9) (

Table 3. First-order coping scores relative to gender.

Gender		Mental Imagery	Effort Expenditure	Thought Control	Seeking Support	Relaxation	Logical Analysis	Venting of Unpleasant Emotions	Disengagement	Social Withdrawal	Mental Distraction
Male (N = 568)	Mean	3.90	3.33	4.07	3.54	3.48	4.13	3.43	3.63	2.83	2.57
	SD	0.78	1.13	0.84	0.92	.87	0.78	1.03	1.12	0.97	1.10
Female (N = 349)	Mean	3.89	3.69	3.36	3.44	3.45	3.70	4.30	4.12	2.75	2.44
	SD	0.77	1.14	1.23	0.94	0.86	0.89	0.81	0.90	0.98	1.02

).

In general, young male athletes used task-oriented coping, while young female athletes used disengagement coping more (

Table 4. Second-order coping scores relative to gender.

Gender		Task-Oriented Coping	Disengagement-Oriented Coping	Distraction-Oriented Coping
Male (N = 568)	Mean	3.74	3.53	2.70
	SD	0.47	0.97	0.82
Female (N = 349)	Mean	3.59	4.20	2.59
	SD	0.50	0.62	0.78

).

3.3. Coping Scores among Young Athletes According to the Type of Sport

The highest first-order scores for coping relative to sport type were as follows (

Table 5. First-order coping scores compared to the type of sport.

Type of Sport		Mental Imagery	Effort Expenditure	Thought Control	Seeking Support	Relaxation	Logical Analysis	Venting of Unpleasant Emotions	Disengagement	Social Withdrawal	Mental Distraction
Male team sport (N = 382)	Mean	3.87	3.15	4.10	3.51	3.37	4.10	3.24	3.55	2.91	2.51
	SD	0.75	1.07	0.75	0.86	0.82	0.78	1.13	1.19	0.95	1.14
Female team sport (N = 264)	Mean	3.81	3.70	3.55	3.31	3.22	3.97	4.16	3.83	2.49	2.28
	SD	0.77	1.16	1.20	0.95	0.84	0.74	0.80	1.06	0.85	0.93
Men’s individual sport (N = 186)	Mean	4.00	3.77	3.91	3.71	3.77	3.87	3.93	4.16	2.89	2.79
	SD	0.83	1.1	1.06	0.95	0.87	0.99	0.81	0.73	1.01	1.06
Women’s individual sport (N = 85)	Mean	4.01	3.51	3.14	3.62	3.96	3.75	4.40	4.23	3.01	2.75
	SD	0.79	1.11	1.32	0.99	0.74	1.01	0.61	0.73	1.16	1.03

).

-

Young male athletes in team sport: Thought control (4.10 ± 0.75) and Logical analysis (4.10 ± 0.78).

-

Young female athletes in team sport: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.16 ± 0.80) and Disengagement (3.83 ± 1.06).

-

Young male athletes in individual sport: Mental imagery (4.00 ± 0.83) and Disengagement (4.16 ± 0.73).

-

Young female athletes in individual sport: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.40 ± 0.61) and Disengagement (4.23 ± 0.73).

In general, young male athletes affiliated with team sports used task-oriented coping, whereas young female athletes in team and individual sports and young male athletes in individual sports used disengagement-oriented coping (see

Table 6. Second-order coping scores compared to the type of sport.

Type of Sport		Task-Oriented Coping	Disengagement-Oriented Coping	Distraction-Oriented Coping
Male team sport (N = 382)	Mean	3.67	3.40	2.71
	SD	0.45	1.04	0.84
Female team sport(N = 264)	Mean	3.60	4.00	2.39
	SD	0.43	0.76	0.66
Men’s individual sport (N = 186)	Mean	3.84	4.05	2.84
	SD	0.58	0.63	0.80
Women’s individual sport (N = 85)	Mean	3.67	4.32	2.89
	SD	0.53	0.47	0.81

).

3.4. The First-Order Scores of Coping Used by Young Athletes by Sports Specialty

The highest first-order coping scores according to sports specialty are (

Table 7. First-order coping scores according to sports specialty.

Sport		Mental Imagery	Effort Expenditure	Thought Control	Seeking Support	Relaxation	Logical Analysis	Venting of Unpleasant Emotions	Disengagement	Social Withdrawal	Mental Distraction
Soccer (N = 376)	Mean	3.64	3.11	3.92	3.23	3.30	3.96	3.33	3.29	2.93	2.73
	SD	0.79	1.09	0.78	0.89	0.80	0.89	1.21	1.14	1.03	114
Handball (N = 158)	Mean	4.12	3.77	3.77	3.63	3.28	4.11	4.05	4.13	2.54	1.93
	SD	0.69	1.08	131	0.88	0.92	0.59	0.84	0.96	0.83	0.77
Volleyball (N = 53)	Mean	4.30	3.84	3.87	3.53	3.47	4.10	3.88	4.06	2.38	1.79
	SD	0.55	1.26	1.14	0.82	0.97	0.70	0.85	1.079	0.56	0.77
Basketball (N = 59)	Mean	4.08	3.64	3.69	4.02	3.32	4.20	4.01	4.44	2.42	2.26
	SD	0.12	1.04	1.05	0.74	0.65	0.12	0.55	0.61	0.43	0.54
Athletics (N = 78)	Mean	4.04	3.62	3.58	3.75	3.85	3.85	4.10	4.10	2.77	2.89
	SD	0.92	1.27	1.31	0.87	0.83	0.90	0.78	0.78	1.06	1.01
Taekwondo (N = 61)	Mean	3.94	3.06	4.13	3.71	3.83	4.02	3.93	4.2	2.81	2.50
	SD	0.84	1.08	0.95	0.95	0.92	0.97	0.85	0.67	0.94	1.02
Karate (N = 24)	Mean	4.20	3.53	3.31	3.51	3.56	3.50	4.30	4.35	2.85	2.31
	SD	0.43	0.83	1.39	1.07	0.76	0.51	0.63	0.55	0.94	0.58
Kickboxing (N = 21)	Mean	3.93	4.05	4.00	3.68	4.14	4.32	4.08	4.4	3.28	2.85
	SD	0.38	0.94	0.61	0.61	0.43	0.52	0.72	0.27	0.66	0.68
Kyokushinkai (N = 21)	Mean	4.00	4.40	3.97	3.45	4.01	4.05	3.83	4.20	3.29	2.60
	SD	1.01	1.03	1.31	1.22	0.76	1.15	1.02	0.80	1.01	1.22
Gymnastics (N = 36)	Mean	4.21	3.94	2.94	3.48	3.71	3.33	4.33	4.60	2.96	2.71
	SD	0.75	0.89	1.26	1.22	0.89	1.21	0.71	0.62	1.58	1.29
Canoe Kayak (N = 30)	Mean	3.62	4.23	3.62	3.97	3.80	3.80	4.10	3.72	3.12	3.55
	SD	0.80	0.48	0.90	0.75	0.89	1.19	0.66	0.81	0.74	0.87

):

-

Soccer: Thought control (3.92 ± 0.78) and Logical analysis (3.96 ± 0.89).

-

Handball: Mental imagery (4.12 ± 0.69) and Disengagement (4.13 ± 0.96).

-

Volleyball: Mental imagery (4.30 ± 0.55) and Logical analysis (4.10 ± 0.7).

-

Basketball: Logical analysis (4.20 ± 0.12) and Disengagement (4.44 ± 0.61).

-

Athletics: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.10 ± 0.78) and Disengagement (4.10 ± 0.78).

-

Taekwondo: Thought control (4.13 ± 0.95) and Disengagement (4.2 ± 0.67).

-

Karate: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.30 ± 0.63) and Disengagement (4.35 ± 0.55).

-

Kickboxing: Logical analysis (4.32 ± 0.52) and Disengagement (4.4 ± 0.27).

-

Kyokushinkai: Expenditure effort (4.4 ± 1.03) and Disengagement (4.2 ± 0.80).

-

Gymnastics: Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.33 ± 0.71) and Disengagement (4.6 ± 0.62).

-

Canoe Kayak: Effort expenditure (4.23 ± 0.52) and Venting of unpleasant emotions (4.1 ± 0.66).

4. Discussion

4.1. The Effect of Gender on Coping in Young Athletes in Team and Individual Sports

MANOVA confirmed the effect of gender and type of sport factors on the dispositional coping repertoire used by young Tunisian athletes in individual and team sports. Our study confirmed the difference between the sexes in relative adaptation and in the way that men and women cope with stress. The effect of sex on the dispositional and situational coping repertoire in sport has been explored by several studies, with conflicting findings. Some studies suggest that there are strong differences between the sexes, while other studies have indicated only partial support for gender differences.

The type of sport also influences the coping repertoire among young Tunisian athletes; however, studies that prove this are still scarce, although some studies demonstrate this effect by centralizing collective coping.

4.2. The Level of Coping among Young Athletes According to the Gender Factor

Our study reveals that young male athletes use task-oriented coping, while young female athletes use disengagement-oriented coping more. Distraction-oriented coping was not used significantly. According to Gaudreau et al. 2010 [28], task-oriented coping and disengagement-oriented coping were associated, respectively, with the best and worst levels of subjective and objective achievement.

According to Doron and Martinent (2017) [16], female athletes had higher levels of emotionally focused coping during competition. In some studies, men used problem-oriented coping more than women [45]. Others have found that women used a more problem-oriented adaptation, indicating that the athletes who master the situation were associated with the evaluation of the challenge, which was itself associated with the pleasant emotions. These associations were combined with the task-oriented coping. In addition, avoidance goals were associated with threat ratings, which in turn were associated with unpleasant emotions, these emotions being coupled with disengagement-oriented forms of coping.

4.3. The Level of Coping in Young Athletes According to Type of Sport

Our study indicated that the level of coping differs depending on the individual and team sports discipline. Young male athletes in team sports used task-oriented coping, while young female athletes in team and individual sports and young male athletes in individual sports used disengagement-oriented coping. However, little attention has been paid to the inter-personal or social functions of emotions in sport. Recent research has examined athlete responses to organizational and inter-personal stressors, which could be considered common stressors for teams and groups [46,47].

On the other hand, we have found that coping varies according to the sporting discipline practiced. While differences in the personality characteristics of athletes from different sports disciplines have been identified, little progress has been made in understanding these differences [48,49,50].

Athletes report a wide variety of emotions associated with their participation in sport, which can have positive and negative consequences on team performance and functioning.

5. Limitations

In the inter-personal context, athletes use a wide variety of coping strategies. These can often be influenced by the social environment, even by the coping strategies used by other people who influence this environment, and the links maintained between the variables characterizing group dynamics and emotional process. The failure to test these people’s coping strategies is one of the biggest shortcomings in our current study.

6. Conclusions

A growing body of scholarly research shows the importance of studying coping strategies both at the intra- and inter-personal levels. However, most research generally focuses on the intra-personal nature of coping, while there are exciting developments in areas of inter-personal adaptation, such as community adjustment and inter-personal emotional regulation. In this context, our work is aimed at studying the repertoire of coping strategies at the collective and individual levels. Athletes constantly interact with their environments, and it is, therefore, important to explore emotional phenomena while taking into account the social aspects of the sport context. Emotional expressions were seen as impacting team functioning and performance, communicating and conveying team values, fulfilling functions of affiliation among teammates, and encouraging dealing with stressors as a team. Factors that appeared to influence athletes’ emotions included the identity of the athlete, relationships with teammates, opponents, leaders, coaches, and social norms of expressing emotions and dealing well with the stress of training and competition.

As a result, in the future, we may consider studying how stressors are assessed as a team and how athletes’ joint assessments may be identical or inconsistent with those of their teammates.