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COPING SKILLS AND DISPOSITIONAL RESILIENCE/HARDINESS OF ELITE AND SUB-ELITE EQUESTRIANS

Abstract

C.L. Salma, M.C. Meyers, and J. Fitzpatrick. K.M. Shuman

Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

Success in sport has been attributed to an athlete's ability to continually cope with stressful situations within his/her environment. In equestrian sports, there is minimal room for error while dealing with a plethora of ever-changing conditions and unique challenges involving human: equine interaction. Therefore, a mindset with the ability to overcome stressors leading to an optimal outcome in this sport is crucial. Limited information, however, has been published on this traditional sport. PURPOSE: To quantify the coping skills and hardiness of equestrians. METHODS: Following written informed consent, 71 equestrian athletes (mean age = 45.0 ± 12.7 yr.), completed the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI; Smith et al., 1995): coping with adversity (COPE), peaking under pressure (PEAK), goal setting/mental preparation (GOAL), concentration (CONC), freedom from worry (FREE), confidence and achievement motivation (CONF), coachability (COAC), and personal coping resources (PCR); the Sports Inventory for Pain (SIP; Meyers et al., 1992): direct coping (COP), cognitive (COG), catastrophizing (CAT), avoidance (AVD), body awareness (BOD), and total coping resources (TCR); and the Dispositional Resilience/ Hardiness Scale (Bartone et al., 1989): commitment (CM), control (CO), challenge (CH), and psychological hardiness (PH). Data were grouped by skill level (elite, sub-elite), event (dressage, show jumping, three-day eventing), and gender. RESULTS: MANOVAs (Wilks’ Lambda) indicated no significant main effects across skill level (F30,108 = 0.766; P = 0.797; n-b = 0.656), event (F30,108 = 0.897; P = 0.622; n-b = 0.749), gender (F15,55 = 1.348; P = 0.207; n-b = 0.727), or skill x event (F45,146 = 0.926; P = 0.608; n-b = 0.883). Univariate analyses (mean ± SD) indicated a trend for Olympic athletes to respond higher in PEAK (10.3 ± 1.5 vs 9.6 ± 2.2), CONC (11.3 ± 1.5 vs 8.6 ± 2.3), CONF (11.3 ± 1.0 vs 9.0 ± 1.3), PCR (72.5 ± 5.9 vs 57.4 ± 8.0), COP (34.3 ± 2.2 vs 26.5 ± 6.0), COG (19.3 ± 2.4 vs 14.9 ± 3.9), and TCR (45.0 ± 5.5 vs 31.6 ± 7.7) than amateur athletes (P = 0.02 to 0.04), respectively, as well as a trend for dressage competitors to respond higher in PCR (65.3 ± 9.2 vs 59.7 ± 11.1; P = 0.03) than eventing competitors, respectively. There was a trend for female equestrians to respond higher in COAC (10.4 ± 1.7 vs 9.1 ± 1.0; P = 0.045) than male competitors, respectively. CONCLUSION: Overall, equestrians possess similar coping skills and dispositional resilience/hardiness across skill level, event, and gender. At this time, findings may be a function of sample size across all variables, with further investigation warranted and on-going.

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