Grit and Growth Mindset as Predictors of Psychological Resilience in Collegiate Athletes

Description

Vidhuitma Chauhan (Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS), Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, Punjab)

Student-athletes are required to perform dual roles, both as a student and a player and manage the functions associated with each role effectively and efficiently. But this requires significant psychological adaptability on the part of the student-athlete. This study thus aimed at exploring the role of grit and growth mindset among college going student-athletes and assessed their predictive impact on psychological resilience. Grit is defined as perseverance and unwavering passion for one’s goal. While a growth mindset refers to the belief that abilities or characteristics are not permanent and can be enhanced or changed through effort. A cross-sectional correlational design was formulated for 111 collegiate athletes. Participants filled out the Short Grit Scale by Angela Duckworth (2009), Carol Dweck’s Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale and Brief Resilience Scale (BRS; Smith et al., 2008). Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation were employed to analyze the data. The results revealed the existence of a significant and positive relationship between Grit, Growth Mindset and Psychological Resilience. Furthermore, Multiple regression was employed to determine the predictive power of both grit and growth mindset. The overall model was statistically significant, F = 24.93, p<.001, explaining approximately 30.3% of variance in psychological resilience (R2 = .303). A growth mindset is emerging as the strongest predictor of resilience. Findings suggest that resilience in student-athletes is a result of both persistent commitment and perseverance for one’s goal as well as flexible attitudes or belief systems about one’s ability. These findings demonstrate how crucial it is to support and enhance both incremental ability beliefs and long-term effort orientation to fulfill the demands associated with each sphere (academics & sports) successfully and gracefully.