Perfectionism and well-being among student athletes: The mediating role of athletic coping

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the mediating effect of coping between perfectionism and well-being. In other words, it has been assumed that with the increase in the level of perfectionism, the increase will make it difficult to cope and consequently decrease the mental well-being of individuals, the study examined athletic coping mediated the perfectionism–wellbeing relationship among student athletes. According to recent research that athletic coping may mediate the relationship between perfectionism and well-being. Participants were 292 sports students obtained with the convenient sampling method comprising 119 females and 173 males. Ages ranged from 18-35 years (M = 21.71, SD = 2.15). Self-report data were collected including psychometric measures assessing multidimensional perfectionism, mental wellbeing and athletic coping skills. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between mental well-being and coping skills of sportspeople. There were negative significant correlations observed between mental well-being with other-oriented, socially-prescribed and self-oriented perfectionism. The results of this study suggest that athletic coping skills had a partial mediating role between other-oriented perfectionism and the mental well-being of sportspeople.