Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

The nature of sports competitions involves athletes being compared and ranked based on athletic ability, with athletes constantly confronted by the real and potential threat of failure or loss within the context of their sport. Given this circumstance and the extraordinary amount of pressure often experienced by athletes, developing an ability to be kind towards oneself in the face of failure could be an important part of the training. Self-compassion training, which involves a mindful awareness of present moment experiences and an unconditional kindness towards oneself, has gained increased attention as a potential training method for athletes. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of self-compassion on athlete anxiety, perceived athletic ability, perceived athletic performance, and actual athletic performance. Competitive athletes who participate in time-based sports will be recruited from sports teams and other competitive sports leagues, and randomly assigned to either a 1-month self-compassion training or a wait-list control group. Participants in both groups will complete self-report measures of self-compassion, mindfulness, general anxiety, sport-related anxiety, perceived athletic ability and perceived sport performance, pre and post study. Additional measures of objective athletic performance will be calculated based on the participant’s average speed in their given sport over the past month. Data will be analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance, with Time (pre- to post-treatment) and Group (self-compassion training versus wait-list control) as factors in the model; significant Time by Group interactions will be further analyzed with pairwise least square mean comparisons.