Nr. 1 - Lietuvos sporto informacijos centras

2013 Nr. 1(71)
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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 χ 2 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, approachcognitive,
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. Approachcognitive
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
SUMMARY
Giedrė Starkevičiūtė
Mykolas Romeris University
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
(χ 2 =3,12; p=0,04) and approach-cognitive (χ 2 =3,04;
p=0,03), and women more frequently use avoidantbehaviour
(χ 2 =4,71; p=0,03), avoidant-cognitive
(χ 2 =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.
Keywords: competitive stress, coping strategies,
gender differences, track-and-field.
Giedrė Starkevičiūtė
S. Dariaus ir S. Girėno g. 70, LT‐46261 Kaunas
Tel. +370 683 73 833
El. paštas: giedrestr@gmail.com
Gauta 2012 11 24
Patvirtinta 2013 04 26