Elisabeth Rosnet

Trait self-esteem and claimed self-handicapping motives in sports situations

Abstract We examined the relationship between physical self-esteem and claimed self-handicapping among athletes by taking motives into consideration. In Study 1, 99 athletes were asked to report their tendency to engage in claimed self-handicapping for self-protective and self-enhancement motives (trait measures). Low self-esteem athletes reported a higher tendency to engage in claimed self-handicapping for these two motives compared with high self-esteem athletes. Neither low nor high self-esteem athletes reported a preference for one motive over the other. In Study 2, 107 athletes participated in a test that was ostensibly designed to assess high physical abilities – and thus to encourage self-handicapping for self-enhancement motives (success-meaningful condition) – or to assess low physical abilities, and thus to encourage self-handicapping for self-protective motives (failure-meaningful condition). Before starting the test, athletes were given the opportunity to claim handicaps that could impair their performance. Low self-esteem athletes claimed more handicaps than high self-esteem athletes in both conditions. Findings suggest that low physical self-esteem athletes engage more in claimed handicapping regardless of motives, relative to high physical self-esteem athletes.

Emotions and performance in rugby

Purpose This study investigated emotion–performance relationships in rugby union. We identified which emotions rugby players experienced and the extent to which these emotions were associated with performance, considering how emotions unfold over the course of a game, and whether the game was played at home or away. Methods Data were gathered from 22 professional male rugby union players using auto-confrontation interviews to help identify situations within games when players experienced intense emotions. We assessed the intensity of emotions experienced before each discrete performance and therefore could assess the emotion–performance relationship within a competition. Results Players identified experiencing intense emotions at 189 time-points. Experts in rugby union rated the quality of each performance at these 189 time-points on a visual analog scale. A Linear Mixed Effects model to investigate emotion–performance relationships found additive effects of game location, game time, and emotions on individual performance. Conclusion Results showed 7 different pre-performance emotions, with high anxiety and anger associating with poor performance. Future research should continue to investigate emotion–performance relationships during performance using video-assisted recall and use a measure of performance that has face validity for players and coaches alike.