Anxiety, Proactive Coping and Well-being among Student-athletes

Description

Page: 436-442

Reeta Chauhan¹, Khushboo Kumari², and Shubhangi Kumari³ (Department of Psychology, Samastipur College, Samastipur, Bihar¹ and Department of Psychology, L. N. Mithila University, Darbhanga, Bihar^2,3)

Student-athletes encounter distinctive challenges, as they frequently undergo considerable stress. Sports and physical activities, acknowledged for their ability to promote tranquillity, mutual understanding, and social cohesion, serve as global methods for participation. However, within the cohort of student-athletes, an additional dimension of this phenomenon is the heightened levels of anxiety, which, if unaddressed, may pose a risk to their overall well-being. The study attempts to analyze the gender difference among male and female student-athletes and investigates the association between competitive state anxiety and proactive coping with well-being. The study involved 200 student-athletes. The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS, Diener et al., 1985); ‘The Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2R, Cox, Martens, & Russell, 2003); and the Proactive Coping scale (from Proactive Coping Inventory, Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999) were used to assess the objectives of the study. The findings suggest that both male and female student-athletes reported comparable levels of overall well-being. In the context of competitive state anxiety, the sole distinction observed was within the self-confidence domain. Male student-athletes exhibited greater use of proactive coping. The outcomes of the correlation analysis revealed a lack of significant correlation between the overall levels of competitive state anxiety and proactive coping in relation to the life satisfaction of student-athletes. The study suggests that the correlation between cognitive anxiety and self-confidence can profoundly affect an athlete’s competitive performance results. When athletes exhibit a robust level of self-confidence, they may be more skilled at regulating cognitive anxiety, thereby converting potential detriments into a motivational drive that augments their competitive advantage.