Person. indicid. D# Vol. 24. No. 6, pp. 713-788. 1998 8 1998 ElscvierScienceLtd. All rights reserved

Pergamon

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THE RELATIONSHIP OF COPING AND ITS PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS TO POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AFFECT IN SPORT Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle* School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, England (Received 30 July 1997; accepted 1 October 1997)

article examined the ability of six different coping strategies and their perceived e&ctiveness in predicting positive and negative affect in sport. Furthermore, it was investigated whether perceived coping effectiveness moderated the influence of coping strategies on affect. British University athletes (N = 356) were requested to recall a recent important competition in their sport when they had a stressful or challenging experience. They were then asked to rate the extent to which they relied on a number of different coping strategies to deal with the situation and the degree to which they found these effective. In agreement with the theoretical predictions of Folkman (1984), problem-focused coping predicted positive affect whereas emotion-focused coping predicted negative affect. Furthermore, for almost all the coping variables, their perceived effectiveness predicted, in a positive way, positive affect and negatively, negative affect. Moreover, the perceived effectiveness of the coping strategies of seeking social support, venting of emotions, and behavioural disengagement, moderated the influence of those strategies on affect. Lastly, a comparison between high and low effective coping groups showed that the former was associated with more pleasant affective experiences. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Summary-This

Key-Wor& coping, coping effectiveness, affect, sport.

The study of coping in psychology dates back to the 1960’s when work on the concept of defence (originating from the psychoanalytic framework) began to be subsumed under the label of coping (Parker & Endler, 1996). Research on the nature, antecedents and consequences of coping has been significantly influenced by the theoretical work of Lazarus and Folkman (Lazarus, 1966, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Folkman, 1984). Embedded in the cognitive paradigm of psychological thought, Lazarus’s (1966) original definition viewed coping as the individual’s efforts to manage an unfavourable person-environment relationship caused from various stressors. However, Lazarus’s (1993) more recent cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion views stress as a subset of emotion and conceptualises coping (along with cognitive appraisal of emotions) as critical mediators of person-environment relationships and various psychological, physiological, and behavioural outcomes. Cognitive appraisal is a process through which individuals judge the meaning and the significance of a particular situation for themselves (Folkman, Lazarus, Dukel-Schetter, DeLongis & Gruen, 1986). Two major forms of appraisal have been described: primary appraisal, where individuals evaluate the relevance and the consequences of the environmental encounter, and secondary appraisal, where individuals estimate their coping resources and choices (Folkman, 1984). According to Lazarus (1993), in cognitive appraisal the demands and the constraints of the situation are contrasted with personal goals and beliefs producing a wide variety of positive or negative emotions. Unfavourable situational encounters will trigger a wide variety of coping responses depending on the perceived control of the situation and the coping resources that one has. From a potentially vast number of coping responses, researchers have derived a small number of general dimensions. According to a distinction proposed by Folkman & Lazarus (1985), coping can

* To whom all correspondence should be addressed: Professor Stuart J. H. Biddle, Department of PE, Sports Science & Recreation Management, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics LEI I 3TU, U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1509 223287; Fax: +44 (0)1509 223971; E-mail: S.J.H.Biddle@,lboro.ac.uk 773

114

Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle

either be used to regulate emotions (emotion-focused) or to alter the situation that causes the unfavourable person-environment relationship (problem-focused). More recently, Endler & Parker (1990) have added a third dimension, avoidance coping, which they defined as an individual’s decision to withdraw from a particular stressful task, or to engage in another activity. A central theme in Lazarus’s (1991, 1993) theory is that coping is highly contextual, varying across situations and within different stages of the same situation. This process-view of coping downplays the influence of personality traits (e.g. neuroticism, locus of control) in producing a stable set of preferred coping strategies that will generalise across situations. In contrast, Carver, Scheier 8~ Weintraub (1989) and Hewitt & Flett (1996) have argued that personality variables can influence the degree to which certain coping strategies are employed in different situations. As Carver et al. (1989) and Carver & Scheier (1994) have shown, there is a moderate degree of overlap between dispositional coping strategies and those employed in an important situation. However, similarly to other areas where there is a controversy regarding the primacy of personality or environmental influences, the inclusion of both has been proved to be the most fruitful path of research on coping (Anshel, 1996; Bouffard & Cracker, 1992; Parker & Endler, 1996). Furthermore, the separation of a variable into its state and trait components has been successfully applied in the past (e.g. state-trait anxiety; Spielberger, Gorsuch & Lushene, 1970) and such a distinction could also be useful in the area of coping research. Coping research in sport

Although the history of coping research in many areas of psychology is relatively old, it is only during the last decade that researchers in sport psychology have systematically looked at the mechanisms and the consequences of applying different coping strategies in sport. There are many situations in sport that can be perceived as challenging, threatening, or stressful, such as when playing an important game, getting media attention, injuries, poor refereeing, bad weather conditions, performance slumps, etc. If sport performers do not have the appropriate coping skills to deal with these situations, then they are likely to experience poor performance, negative affect and they may eventually drop out of sport (Madden, 1995). Various stress management training programs adapted from other areas of psychology (e.g. Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training; Smith, 1980), or developed in the context of sport (COPE; Anshel, 1990), have been employed to teach athletes how to cope effectively in sport. At a theoretical level, research on coping in sport has been influenced mainly by the work of Lazarus and colleagues (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Folkman et al., 1986). For example, Bouffard & Cracker (1992) using sport participants with physical disabilities, provided support for the process view of coping by showing that the participants did not use consistently the same coping strategies across situations. Further support, from a cross-cultural perspective, for the transactional model of coping has been provided by Anshel(1996) who reported variability in the employment of coping strategies across situations by 421 Australian male athletes. Gould, Eklund & Jackson (1993a) interviewed the 1988 U.S. Olympic wrestling team to investigate their coping responses during those Olympics. Similar to other contexts (e.g. college examinations; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985) the analysis showed that the wrestlers used a variety of problem- and emotion-focused strategies, often in combination. In order to examine the unfolding of coping processes during a whole competitive season rather than in a single event (e.g. Olympics), Gould, Finch & Jackson (1993b) interviewed 17 Senior U.S. National champion figure skaters. Through content analysis, a number of general coping dimensions emerged: rational thinking and self-talk, social support, time management, ignoring, positive focus and orientation. An important feature of this study was that a number of stressors were examined and related to different coping strategies. Providing further support to the transactional view of coping in sport, the results showed that each source of stress was associated with a unique set of coping strategies. Cracker & Graham (1995) hypothesised that athletes will experience high stress when they have high goal incongruence. Therefore, they examined the coping patterns employed by 235 athletes who reported that they were unable to reach an important goal in a recent competition. The results, in accordance with the predictions of Folkman (1984), showed that problem-focused coping strategies were associated with positive affect whereas emotion-focused coping strategies were linked to negative affect. In addition, Cracker & Graham (1995) examined gender differences in coping.

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport

715

to their hypotheses, the results showed that there were no substantial differences between males and females. In contrast to these results, significant gender differences in coping styles have been reported by Anshel & Kaissidis (1997) and Anshel, Williams & Hodge (1997). However, it is not clear whether these differences were a function of gender or whether they are contaminated by differences in other variables examined, namely skill level and culture. In fact, one of the number of replicable findings stemming from Lazarus and colleagues’ work (which are described in his 1993 review paper) is that women and men usually exhibit similar coping patterns. In summary, sport-related research on coping has been very useful since it has demonstrated that individuals cope in sport differently across a number of situations, employing a variety of problemand emotion-focused strategies in combination rather than in isolation. A consistent finding across studies is that sport performers’ strongest preference is for problem-focused strategies (e.g. effort, planning, task focus), rather than emotion-focused or avoidance-focused ones (e.g. distancing, venting of emotions, disengagement). Contrary

Perceived effectiveness of coping

Folkman’s (1984) definition of coping entails a distinction between coping efforts and the success of these efforts in managing situational demands. That is, coping is defined as the individual’s attempts to change a troubled person+nvironment relationship regardless of whether these efforts are effective or not. As Folkman (1984) noted, this definition is in contrast to previous conceptualisations of coping in which desired outcomes are associated with effective coping and undesired ones are linked to the absence of coping. However, whereas coping entails both successful and unsuccessful efforts, research in the past has generally ignored the impact of effective vs noneffective coping strategies on a number of psychological, physiological and behavioural outcomes. Instead, various coping strategies have been classified a priori by authors such as Carver & Scheier (1994) as having primarily a functional (e.g. planning, restraint coping) or dysfunctional role (e.g. behavioural and mental disengagement, denial). This a priori taxonomy is in contrast to Folkman & Lazarus’s (1988) emphasis that “it is important not to lose sight of the principle that the adaptive value of a coping process often depends on the context” (p. 473). The importance of assessing individuals’ perception of coping effectiveness has also been underlined by Beehr & McGrath (1996), who cast doubt on the ability of coping researchers to adequately understand on their own the nature of stressful situational encounters, the cognitions and motives of the individuals and the extent to which coping outcomes are perceived as desirable or not by the individuals. It is important, therefore, that research designs measure individuals’ subjective experience of the coping process. This can be achieved by either qualitative analysis (e.g. interviews), or by asking individuals to rate on a scale the extent to which a number of different coping strategies were effective in achieving desired outcomes. Perceived coping effectiveness has been found to significantly predict a number of psychological variables and also to moderate the influence of coping strategies on various psychological outcomes. For example, in a study conducted by Aldwin & Revenson (1987), the interaction between various forms of coping and their perceived effectiveness significantly added to the prediction of psychological symptoms over and above those explained by coping strategies alone. A cost and benefit analysis of coping by Schdnpflug & Battman (1988) also advocates, albeit indirectly, the usefulness of examining coping effectiveness. These two authors castigate previous research for focusing on the positive outcomes associated with efficient coping and ignoring the negative consequences of poor coping. Ineffective coping can result in poor psychological outcomes and can be an additional source of stress itself, thus reinforcing a cycle between stressor( ineffective coping and undesired outcomes. In sport, research on the impact of coping effectiveness on important outcomes (e.g. improved performance, positive emotional states) is non-existent despite Hardy, Jones & Gould’s (1996) contention that the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive coping can vary across different sport situations. Indeed, there is some support for this argument. Williams & Krane (1992) examined 112 female collegiate golfers and showed that denial and avoidance (coping strategies that have been characterised as primarily dysfunctional by Carver & Scheier, 1994) of stressors were positively associated with an objective performance measure. This provides indication, though not strong causal evidence, that the particular coping strategies may have been perceived as functional by the golfers.

776

Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle

There are a number of hypotheses concerning how effective coping works. Specifically, it may reduce the actual and perceived demands of a stressful or threatening situation, increase the necessary resources to deal with these demands (Carpenter, 1992) alter or eliminate the conditions that produce stress, and influence the intensity and duration of affective and somatic outcomes (Zeidner & Saklofske, 1996). Furthermore, according to Folkman’s (1992) matching hypothesis, effective coping requires a fit between the objective situation, situational appraisal, and coping. Inappropriate appraisals of the situation may result in ineffective ways of coping. Specifically, when situations are appraised as controllable, problem-focused strategies should be used, whereas uncontrollable situations can be better managed with emotion-focused coping. Unfortunately, there is no empirical support for these hypotheses in the area of sport. Formulating the present research design

The purpose of the present study was to examine the ability of both coping and coping effectiveness to predict affect in sport. The context of physical activity is characterised by a great variety of affective reactions which vary in hedonic tone and degree of activation experienced, and which can influence motivated behaviour and sport performance (Cracker & Graham, 1995). Since Vallerand (1983) underlined the importance and the need for research on sport-related emotions, there have been many studies that have looked into the antecedents, the processes and the outcomes of various types of affect in physical activity employing a number of different theoretical perspectives. However, there is limited research that has linked coping strategies and affective responses in sport. This seems to be an empirical gap since in transactional models of coping, affect and coping are closely linked. As Folkman (1984) has suggested, different ways of coping with threatening or challenging encounters can influence the experience of positive or negative affect. That is, active or problem-focused coping strategies such as increased effort, planning, and suppression of competing activities, are usually associated with positive emotions. In contrast, trying to divert attention away from the situation, or to change the meaning of the situation (avoidance- and emotion-focused coping) are usually indicators of lack of control and inability to take direct action, and are often related to negative emotional outcomes. Cracker 8c Graham (1995) have provided limited support for the above hypotheses in the context of physical activity, whereas the findings of Bouffard & Cracker (1992) were equivocal. The present study looked at the ability of six different forms of coping to predict positive and negative affect in sport. In accordance with Folkman’s (1984) theoretical arguments, it was hypothesised that problem-focused strategies would positively predict positive affect, whereas emotion- and avoidance-focused coping would positively predict negative affect. In addition to previous studies, the present one examined whether the effectiveness of the six coping strategies can be a positive predictor of positive affect and a negative predictor of negative affect in sport. It was also investigated whether sport performers who viewed these strategies as effective would experience more positive and less negative affect than those who perceive their coping as less effective. Furthermore, it was examined whether perceived effectiveness of coping can moderate the influence of coping strategies on positive and negative affect in sport. It was hypothesised that when a coping strategy is used a great deal, athletes would experience more positive affect (or less negative affect) when this, strategy is viewed as effective rather than less effective.

METHOD Participants and procedure

The participants were 356 British Universities athletes of both sexes (males = 223, females = 133) representing a wide variety of sports. The sample was taken from the south of England and it was of middle to higher socio-economic status with a mean age of 20.83 years (SD = 3.77, range = 1840). The data for this study are part of a larger study that the authors conducted on sport-related coping employing athletes from British Universities with an established sport record. Informed consent was obtained from all the participants prior to the completion of the questionnaires. The participants were informed that there were no right or wrong answers and that their replies would be kept confidential. They were requested to recall a recent important competition in their sport

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport

777

when they had a sport-related stressful or challenging experience. After giving a brief description of the situation, the participants were asked to rate the extent to which they relied on a number of different coping strategies to handle it. Furthermore, the athletes indicated the perceived effectiveness of each of the coping strategies and the affective outcomes derived from dealing with the particular situation. Instrumentation Short version of the COPE inventory. The multidimensional COPE inventory (Carver et al., 1989) has been adapted and applied to sport by Cracker & Graham (1995) to measure sport participants’ coping strategies. The measurement instrument presented by Cracker & Graham (1995) has twelve subscales tapping a wide array of coping strategies. Due to the length of the inventory, we selected six of its subscales that correspond to some of the most commonly employed coping strategies in sport. The first one is named “Seeking social support for instrumental reasons” and refers to pursuit of advice and information (e.g. Z tried to get help from someone about what to do). The second subscale also entails social support and is named “Seeking social support for emotional reasons”, for example, seeking compassion and understanding (e.g. Z talked to someone about how I felt). “Suppression of competing activities” is the third subscale and refers to actions aiming to block distractions and competing activities and to devote full attention to the task at hand (e.g. Z didn’t let myself think about anything except my performance). “Effort” is another subscale employed to measure athletes’ active coping strategies that involve increased effort in order to deal with challenging or stressful situations (e.g. Z tried to improve my effort). Two other forms of coping were assessed: “Behavioural disengagement” and “Venting of emotions”. The first refers to decreased effort or to decisions to give up a task in order to avoid stressors or challenge (e.g. Zstopped trying), while the second describes loss of temper and “letting negative feelings out” (e.g. Zgot upset and let my feelings out). In addition to the previous six subscales, we used some items from the “Distancing” subscale included in the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman et al., 1986) since it is a coping strategy often employed in sport (Anshel, 1996). This subscale describes efforts to mentally detach oneself from the source of threat by degrading the magnitude of the problem or by creating a positive attitude toward it (e.g. Z went on as ifnothing had happened). It is worth noting that Gould et al. (1993b) have found that the coping categories that emerged through the content analysis of their data matched better with the COPE subscales than with other coping scales from general psychology. On that basis they concluded that the COPE is likely to be a useful instrument to employ in sport coping studies. All the items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“I didn’t do this at all”) to 5 (“I did this a lot”). Initial, albeit weak, evidence for the validity and the reliability of the sport-adapted COPE instrument has been provided by Cracker & Graham (1995). In an exploratory factor analysis that we conducted, the selected coping strategies had a clear factor structure with the exception of the two social support subscales, which collapsed into a single factor named “Seeking of social support”. The internal reliability coefficients for the present study were acceptable for all the subscales (a ranged from 0.76-0.91). Positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) In order to measure the affective outcomes that were associated with the above coping strategies, we administered the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) developed by Watson, Clark & Tellegen (1988). PANAS comprises two lo-item affect scales. The Positive Affect (PA) scale includes items such as “excited”, “enthusiastic” and “inspired”, whereas the Negative Affect (NA) scale comprises items such as “distressed”, “ hostile” and “irritable”. The participants were required to indicate to what extent they experienced the listed emotions on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (“very slightly or not at all”) to 5 (“extremely”). Watson et al. (1988) showed that the PA and NA scales have a relatively good factor structure, high internal consistency, are largely uncorrelated, and are relatively stable over a two-month period, regardless of the population studied, or the time frame and response format used. For the present study, the internal reliability coefficients were satisfactory with a = 0.91 for PA, and a = 0.83 for NA. Coping effectiveness The extent to which the participants believed that the coping strategies they employed were effective in dealing with the described situation was measured with six one-item questions that

778

Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle Table

I. Descriptive

statistics

for all the variables

copingstruregies I. Effort 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Distancing Seeking social support Venting of emotions Suppression of competing activities Behavioural disengagement

in the study M

SD

4.21 2.37 2.37 1.89 3.40

1.38

0.80 0.97 I.01 1.00 0.81 0.73

3.67 2.13

0.85 0.71

4.91 3.63 3.71 3.27 4.51 3.37

I.41 I .63

,4ffi?lv 7. Positive affect 8. Negative affect Percebcd coping ~ff~rhvness 9. Effectiveness of effort 10. Effectiveness of distancing I I. EtTectiveness of seeking social support 12. Effectiveness of venting of emotions 13. Effectiveness of suppression of competing activities 14. Effectiveness of behavioural disengagement Now: Variables l-8 are measured point scales.

on five-point

scales and variables

1.56 I .77 I .33 2.20 9-14 on seven-

corresponded to each of the coping strategies examined. The response scale had a Likert format ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 7 (“very much so”). RESULTS Descriptive statistics

As can be seen from Table 1, the participants used active or problem-focused coping strategies most frequently, that is, increased effort and suppression of competing activities. To a lesser extent they chose to ask for support from others (e.g. coaches, team-mates, friends) and to distance themselves from the source of stress. The least two preferred coping strategies were to “let their emotions out” and to stop trying. The preference for active coping over other forms of coping in sport was also evident in studies by Bouffard & Cracker (1992), Cracker & Graham (1995), and Madden, Kirkby & McDonald (1989). The participants also felt that the coping strategies they employed were moderately effective in dealing with the challenging or threatening situation. In addition, they reported moderately high positive affect and fairly low negative affect. Moderated hierarchical regression analyses

A series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine whether different forms of coping and their perceived effectiveness can significantly predict affective experiences in sport. Furthermore, it was investigated whether perceived effectiveness of coping can moderate the influence of coping strategies on the affective outcomes. Moderator and mediator variables are not similar, and they have been distinguished by Baron 8c Kenny (1986). When a variable acts as a moderator, the relationship between an independent and a dependent variable will vary across the levels of the moderator. In the design of this study, positive affect was the dependent variable in six different regressions. In each of these hierarchical regressions, a particular coping strategy was entered in the first step, followed by its perceived effectiveness on the second step and the coping strategy x perceived effectiveness interaction on the third step. A moderated effect was inferred when the interaction had a significant coefficient and added significantly to the explained variance of positive affect. A summary of these regressions is reported in Table 2. A similar procedure was followed in a series of six hierarchical regressions with negative affect as the dependent variable (Table 3). Following the suggestions of Aiken & West (1991), Friedrich (1982), and Jaccard, Turrisi & Wan (1990), all the variables were standardised prior to the analyses to avoid the problem of multicollinearity between lower and higher order terms. If the first order variables are not stan-

779

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport Table 2. Summary of moderated

hierarchical

regression analyses of positive atTect on six ways ofcoping. effectiveness interactions

their effectiveness, and coping x coping

Predictors

i

Ai

b

F

Regrwion I Behavioural disengagement Effectiveness Behaviouml disengagement

0.137 0.145 0.156

0.137” 0.008 0.01 I’

-0.37 0.09 0.15

54.93,’ 3.13 4.67’

0.061 0.125 0.125

0.061** 0.064** 0.000

0.25 0.31 -0.01

22.50” 25.13” 0.10

0.082 0.113 0.1 I6

0.082** 0.031** 0.003

-0.29 0.18 0.05

30.14’9 11.57** 0.98

Regression 4 Seeking of social support Effectiveness Seeking of social support x effectiveness

0.012 0.038 0.055

0.012’ 0.026*+ 0.037.

0.11 0.22 0.14

4.02; 9.33” 6.26’

Regression 5 EtTort Effectiveness EtTort x effectiveness

0.226 0.271 0.282

0.226** 0.051 0.005

0.49 0.27 0.06

98.94.’ 23.72” 2.21

Regression 6 Distancing Effectiveness Distancing x effectiveness

0.005 0.022 0.024

0.005 0.017* 0.001

-0.07 0.15 0.03

1.75 6.07’ 0.40

R~grmion 2 Suppression of competing Effectiveness Suppression of competing Rrgrtwion 3 Venting of emotions Effectiveness Venting of emotions

x effectiveness

activities activities

x elTectiveness

x effectiveness

Now All the variables have been standardised *p < 0.05, l*p < 0.01.

Table 3. Summary of moderated

hierarchical

and, therefore,

only the unstandardised

coefficients are presented (see text for details).

regression analyses of negative affect on six ways of coping, their effectiveness, and coping x coping effectiveness interactions

Predictors

i

A,’

b

F

Regression I Behavioural disengagement Effectiveness Behavioural disengagement

0.113 0.114 0.122

0.113** 0.000 0.008

0.33 -0.02 -0.12

44.08** 0.19 3.26

0.002 0.071 0.072

0.002 0.069.. 0.001

-0.32 -0.02

0.65 25.55” 0.28

0.140 0.166 0.179

0.140** 0.027** 0.013’

0.37 -0.17 -0.11

54.35” 10.67” 5.10’

Re,yrtwion 4 Seeking of social support Effectiveness Seeking of social support x etfectiveness

0.012 0.038 0.055

0.012’ 0.026** 0.017*

0.15 -0.42 -0.13

8.26** 36.40” 5.72.

R~grtwion 5 Effort Effectiveness Etfort x effectiveness

0.010 0.086 0.087

0.010 0.077.8 0.001

-0.10 -0.33 -0.03

3.24 28.14.’ 0.40

Regression 6 Distancing Effectiveness Distancing x effectiveness

0.025 0.037 0.042

0.025’. 0.012. 0.005

-0.16 -0.13 -0.07

R~gresrion 2 Suppression of competing Effectiveness Suppression of competing Re,yression 3 Venting of emotions Effectiveness Venting of emotions

x effectiveness

activities activities

x effectiveness

x ethxtiveness

Now: All the variables have been standardised < 0.05. l*p < 0.01.

lp

and. therefore, only the unstanddrdised

0.04

8.83** 4.16’ I .68

coefficients are presented (see text for details).

780

Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle

dardised, then their interaction term will be highly correlated with both variables creating methodological and statistical problems. Furthermore, according to Jaccard et al. (1990), when all the variables are standardised, the interpretation of the results should focus on the unstandardised regression coefficients which should be interpreted in the spirit of standardised scores. Despite the low power of moderated regression analysis (Aguinis & Stone-Romero, 1997; Finney, Mitchell, Cronkite & Moos, 1984) four of the twelve interactions were significant and are graphically represented in Fig. 1. In order to determine the form of each interaction, three regression lines were plotted to depict the regression of affect on a particular coping strategy as a function of low, medium and high coping effectiveness (Aiken & West, 1991). The results showed that the effectiveness of seeking social support moderated the impact of this coping strategy on both positive and negative affect. Individuals who employed high levels of seeking social support reported higher positive affect

-+-

Low

---a--- Medium ---+- High

Social Support

--a-- Medium

-_-

Behavioral Disengagement Fig. 1. Significant relationships between different coping strategies and affect at low, medium, and high levels of perceived coping effectiveness. Note: All the variables have been standardised.

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport

-t-

Low

..-a--- Medium High

Social Support

-e-

Low

-=-a-- hkdiun -t-High

Venting of Emotions Fig. 1.(continued).

affect when they perceived that this coping strategy was high in effectiveness, rather than low in effectiveness. In other words, individuals reported high positive affect (or low negative affect) when they employed this strategy a great deal and they found it to be very effective, or when they used it a little and they found it less effective. Effectiveness of coping moderated two more relationships. Specifically, sport performers who employed the coping strategy of behavioural disengagement a great deal, reported more positive affect when they found it effective rather than less effective. Lastly, high levels of venting of emotions were associated with lower negative affect when this coping strategy was perceived as high in effectiveness. These results, therefore, show that the level of positive or negative affect associated with some coping strategies will depend on both the degree of employment and the perceived effectiveness of the strategies. As Finney et al. (1984) and Aiken & West (1991) have suggested, at the presence of a significant interaction, main effects should still be interpreted rather than assumed to be zero (Clear-y & Kessler, and lower negative

782

Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle

1982). Instead of being a constant effect, a main effect when an interaction is significant should be interpreted as an average effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable across different levels of the moderator variable. In the present study there were a number of significant main effects of the six coping strategies and their effectiveness on affect. With regard to positive affect, it was positively predicted by the problem-focused coping strategies of suppression of competing activities and effort, in agreement with the theoretical predictions of Folkman (1984) and Folkman & Lazarus (1988). Furthermore, the perceived effectiveness of these coping strategies added significantly (and positively) to the prediction of positive affect. Behavioural disengagement and venting of emotions were negatively related to positive affect, thus, providing support for the characterisation of these two coping strategies by Carver et al. (1989,1994) as primarily dysfunctional. However, the perceived effectiveness of venting of emotions was of importance since it positively predicted positive affect, something that was also the case for the effectiveness of distancing. The strategy of seeking of social support positively predicted both positive and negative affect. This is in accordance with Carver et al.‘s (1989) findings that this strategy may have both functional and dysfunctional consequences. However, the present study shows that perceived effectiveness is an important variable since individuals who perceived this coping strategy to be effective reported higher positive affect and lower negative affect. Furthermore, perceived effectiveness of effort and suppression of competing activities were negatively related to the report of increased negative affective experiences. Moreover, the adaptive role of perceived effectiveness on attenuating negative affect is shown by the fact that high effectiveness of distancing and venting of emotions were associated with low negative affect. Multivariate

analyses of variance

To examine whether sport performers who described a particular coping strategy as high effective would differ in their affective responses from those who described it as low effective, six one-way MANOVA were conducted. In each of these analyses the effectiveness of the particular coping strategy was the independent variable with two levels (high vs low effective) which represented scores above and below the mean. The dependent variables were the positive and negative affect scores. As the results in Table 4 show, three of the MANOVA were significant whereas two just failed to reach the conventional criterion of p < 0.05. Specifically, those who perceived the two problem-focused coping strategies (suppression of competing activities and increased effort) as high effective differed from those who found these strategies as low effective in that the former reported higher positive affect and lower negative affect. Furthermore, the athletes who perceived the pursuit of social support as a highly effective way to deal with the described situation experienced more positive affect than those who found this coping strategy as low effective. There was also a univariate difference, although not statistically significant at the multivariate level @ = 0.06), in that the individuals who found the two emotion-focused coping strategies (venting of emotions and distancing) as highly effective experienced less negative affect than those who perceived the two coping strategies as low effective. Lastly, with regard to the avoidance-based coping strategy of behavioural disengagement, there were no differences in affect between effectiveness groups. Therefore, these results show that high perceived effectiveness was an important factor for experiencing both high positive affect and low negative affect when problem-focused coping was applied. When emotionfocused coping was used, high perceived effectiveness was important for creating mainly low negative affect.

DISCUSSION The purpose of this article was to examine whether different ways of coping and their perceived effectiveness can be significant sources of information in understanding an important characteristic of sport, namely the experience of positive and negative affect. Six of the most common ways of dealing with sport-specific stressful and challenging situations were investigated, providing results that are in line with previous theoretical and empirical work. Specifically, Folkman (1984), Folkman & Lazarus (1988) and Folkman et al. (1986), have suggested that problem-focused coping strategies are usually related to positive emotions. In other words, direct attempts to deal with a source of

783

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport Table 4. Means (M). standard

Coping strategies

deviations

(SD), and F-values, for each coping effectiveness

Positive affect M

SD

M

3.87a

0.77

2.OOa

0.65

3.43b

0.87

2.28b

0.76

3.9la

0.74

1.98a

0.59

3.24b

0.88

2.42b

0.82

3.74a

0.78

2.05a

0.64

3.6la

0.91

2.22b

0.77

3.72a

0.78

2.04a

0.67

3.6Oa

0.93

2.22b

0.75

3.80a

0.81

2.08a

0.68

3.52b

0.86

2.19a

0.75

3.68a

0.79

2.15a

0.71

3.66a

0.90

2.10a

0.71

group on positive and negative afiect

Negative affect SD

(If

F

P

2,344

15.27

0.00

2,336

36.95

0.00

2,344

2.83

0.06

2,341

2.78

0.06

2,341

5.49

0.01

2,344

0.32

0.73

Note: Group means sharing the same subscript (a or b) in two adjacent vertical columns are not significantly different at the p -c 0.05 level. For example, the two groups on the effectiveness of distancing do not differ significantly on positive affect since they share the same subscript (“a”).

threat or challenge and the sense that one is an active coping agent, can produce positive emotional outcomes. This was the case in the present study with effort and suppression of competing activities positively predicting positive affect. In contrast, reducing effort or withdrawing from the situation (behavioural disengagement), and letting negative feelings out (venting of emotions) were related to high negative and low positive emotional outcomes. This is probably because these coping strategies indicate lack of control and inability to take direct action. However, it is likely that the relationship between coping and affect is bidirectional, with each influencing the other (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; Kirkcaldy, Cooper, Eysenck & Brown, 1994). This hypothesis needs to be tested in sport settings using a longitudinal design. Distancing was associated with low negative affect, a finding similar to that reported by Williams & Krane (1992) with intercollegiate golfers. As Anshel (1996) and Krohne & Hindel (1988) have contended, being able to distance from distracting thoughts and stimuli in sport may enable oneself to concentrate better on the task at hand and to plan appropriate courses of action. The seeking of social support positively predicted both positive and negative affect. The suggestion that this strategy may actually prove to be both beneficial and harmful has been made in the past by Beehr & McGrath (1996) and Folkman (1992). For example, Beehr & McGrath (1996) have explained that social contexts can be harmful and exacerbate stressful encounters by either failing to provide helpful resources or by creating conditions that actually facilitate feelings of stress. Kirkcaldy & Furnham (1995) have referred to the “double-edged hypothesis” involving social support and stress. Although social support can be poor, in other cases it can buffer the potentially detrimental effects of stress. In the context of sport, Ntoumanis, Biddle & Haddock (under review) have shown that the functionally adaptive or maladaptive character of social support can be partially attributed to the motivational orientation (i.e. emphasis on winning or individual improvement; Ames, 1992) of the achievement context that provides it. Future research should address the issues of quality or quantity

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of social support that one receives in order to facilitate our understanding of the relationship of this strategy with stress and other psychological variables. As it was argued earlier, a better understanding of how coping influences the creation of affective experiences can be gained by looking at individuals’ interpretation of how well a specific form of coping worked in a particular context. Although sport coping research has largely overlooked the study of coping effectiveness (Hardy et af., 1996) the results of the present study show the need to assess whether a particular way of coping was effective in dealing with a stressful or challenging sport experience. Analytically, the findings revealed that for almost all the coping variables examined, coping effectiveness predicted both positive affect (positively) and negative affect (negatively). This finding offers support in sport to Folkman & Lazarus’s (1988) contention that coping strategies should not be characterised a priory as functional or dysfunctional because the same coping strategy may prove very useful for one person and of no or little value for another. In addition to the previous analyses, a comparison of means between high and low effective coping groups showed that the former was associated with more pleasant affective experiences. Specifically, athletes who viewed the two problem-focused coping strategies of effort and suppression of competing activities as effective reported more positive affect and less negative affect than those who perceived the particular strategies as less effective. It seems, therefore, that high perceived effectiveness is an important factor in producing both high positive affect and low negative affect when problem-focused coping is employed. Furthermore, athletes who asked for social support experienced more positive affect when they perceived this coping strategy as effective. Moreover, sport performers who used emotion-focused coping strategies had less negative affect when these strategies were deemed as high rather than low in effectiveness. This finding is consistent with coping theories since emotion-focused coping is primarily concerned with the regulation of unpleasant emotions (Folkman, 1984). The above results have an intuitive appeal and are consistent with coping theory and research. When a particular form of coping works in a certain context, such as sport, then individuals will have adaptive emotional experiences. There are many reasons why different individuals may view the same coping strategy as high or low in effectiveness. Perceived control of the situation may be one factor since control and coping are closely related in predicting psychological outcomes; high control is associated with more efficient ways of coping (Compaq Banez, Malcarne & Worsham, 1991; Folkman, 1984; Folkman, Chesney, Pollack & Coates, 1993). It is plausible to assume that sport performers who viewed a stressful or challenging situation as controllable have been able to apply effective coping efforts. Other factors that may have affected coping effectiveness is the extent to which the situation was predictable or not and the degree of development of coping skills (Compas et al., 1991; Folkman, 1984). It is also possible that the differences in coping effectiveness may reflect the fact that different situations were described as stressful or threatening. However, even if all the athletes were asked to describe their coping efforts in the same situation, one should still expect to find variance in coping effectiveness due to differences in personal characteristics. The focus of this article is not on factors that determine whether coping is effective or not in a particular context, but on the different outcomes associated with effective and non-effective coping. A priori categorisations of the functionality of different coping strategies that do not take into account subjective appraisals of perceived success or failure of coping are inherently flawed. A further purpose of the present study was to examine whether perceived effectiveness of different coping strategies can act as a moderator of the impact of coping on positive and negative affect of sport performers. The use of moderator variables in coping research has been previously suggested by Smith, Smoll & Ptacek (1990) as a means of addressing weak and inconsistent results in the area. For example, although Folkman (1984) has theorised that problem-focused coping is related to positive affect and emotion-focused coping to negative affect, results of empirical studies (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; Folkman et al., 1986) have shown that this matching did not occur for all the coping variables they examined. In the present study it was expected that coping effectiveness would act as a moderator of coping and affect in that individuals would report more positive emotional states (or less negative ones) when they employed a particular strategy a great deal and they found it effective, or when they used it little and found it low in effectiveness. The results showed that this was the case for some of the coping strategies examined. Specifically, when the seeking of social support was reported as effective, individuals reported higher positive

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport

785

affect (and lower negative affect) when they employed this coping strategy more rather than less. Phrasing it differently, the athletes had more pleasant affective experiences when they restrained from seeking social support because they perceived it as a less effective means of dealing with their stress. Similarly, high levels of seeking social support predicted low negative affect when sport performers perceived that this coping strategy was effective. Effectiveness of coping moderated two more relationships between coping and affect. Specifically, sport performers who found that reduction of effort or withdrawal from a task (behavioural disengagement) was an effective way in managing a stressful situation, reported more positive affect when they employed this coping strategy a great deal. The work of Schdnpflug & Battman (1988) may prove helpful in understanding this finding. Specifically, these two authors have distinguished between disengagement as “giving up” and disengagement as an instrumental action. That is, although sometimes withdrawing from a task may be an indicator of low effort or helplessness, in other circumstances it may be an adaptive choice, such as when faced with an uncontrollable situation, or using Schiinpflug and Battman’s (1988) terminology, when perceived costs outweigh benefits. The last moderation found in this study was performed by effectiveness of venting on the relationship between venting and negative affect. Specifically, high levels of venting of emotions were associated with lower negative affect when this coping strategy was perceived as high rather than low in effectiveness. As Carver et al. (1989) have explained, letting one’s emotions out may be an adjustive response in some contexts when it is used for a short period of time. They argued, however, that in the long term venting of emotions can become problematic since it can interfere with the employment of more action-oriented coping strategies. The above results show that for the prediction of positive and negative affective experiences in sport researchers should take into account both the degree to which some coping strategies are employed and the athletes’ interpretation of how efficient these were in managing stressful encounters. The previous moderations cast further doubt on apriori classifications of coping strategies into functional and dysfunctional categories. However, for other forms of coping (effort, distancing, and suppression of competing activities), the hypothesised moderation failed to reach statistical significance. This can be partly attributed to the low power of moderated hierarchical regression analysis to detect moderated relationships (Aguinis & Stone-Romero, 1997; Finney et al., 1984). Low power (Type II error) is an important problem in psychological research; however as Schmidt (1996) has shown, issues of power have been ignored while there has been an undue overemphasis on significance levels and Type I errors. With regard to moderated hierarchical regression analysis, Aguinis & Stone-Romero (1997) described a number of conditions that can affect its statistical power: small population moderating effect magnitude, small sample size, and unreliability or range restriction in predictor variable scores. The first condition can be tested only through meta-analysis; the next two are not a problem for the present study, however the last condition seems to hold here. Individuals scored generally high in active coping strategies, thus restricting the range in scores and the variance in the corresponding coping subscales. It is worth noting that Aguinis & Stone-Romero (1997) performed a Monte Carlo simulation, which showed that even when other conditions that affect power are optimal, restriction in range can result in power levels below the 0.80 standard suggested by Cohen (1992). Therefore, the results of the present study need replicating before conclusive inferences are made regarding the moderating role of coping effectiveness. Although there are several criteria to assess coping effectiveness (Zeidner & Saklofske, 1996), the authors chose to base its assessment on self-reports. Many of the other criteria (e.g. resolution of the stressful situation, reduction of physiological and biochemical reactions, behaving in a socially acceptable manner) are of a debatable validity since they cannot adequately show whether various forms of coping work efficiently. For example, the resolution of a stressful situation can be done in such a way that can create new and possibly worse stressors. Also, physiological indicators (e.g. arousal) are often independent of cognitive indicators (Neiss, 1988) and, therefore, they may not reliably reflect cognitive states. The authors of the present study believe that because researchers cannot have on their own a complete picture of the coping process (Beehr & McGrath, 1996), they should also take into account participants’ perceptions. Self-reports on coping effectiveness can potentially be distorted by two factors: social desirability and recall inaccuracy. The first factor is difficult to eliminate and can affect all measurement instruments but we tried to reduce it through the administration of appropriate instructions. As far as the second factor is concerned, recall

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Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart J. H. Biddle

accuracy of coping effectiveness in sport can be distorted by the achievement or non-achievement of desired performance outcomes (Gould et al., 1993a). However, a preliminary analysis that the authors conducted showed that performance measures shared little common variance with perceived effectiveness of six different forms of coping. The results of this study have implications for applied sport psychologists and for therapists/ practitioners in general. Firstly, athletes’ (or patients’) emotional reactions can be partly predicted by examining the coping skills applied in sport situations and their perceived effectiveness. Secondly, applied practitioners should be aware that whether a particular form of coping is effective or not will depend on the actual context and, therefore, they should include in their professional repertoire a wide variety of coping strategies. Furthermore, it is important that future research addresses issues of causality. Specifically, there is a need to look at personal (e.g. perceived competence, motivational beliefs) and situational variables (e.g. perceived control, severity of stressor) that may predict whether a particular form of coping will be effective in a stressful or challenging sport situation. By understanding and possibly predicting when coping strategies will be effective in a specific context, applied sport psychologists will be able to design more efficient coping skills training programmes that can provide positive emotional experiences and possibly enhance sport motivation and performance. Although in many cases the independent variables of the study significantly predicted positive and negative affect, the amount of variance explained was small. However, similar results have also been cited in general psychology research. For example, Smith et al. (1990) reported that seldom more than lO-15% of the outcome variance has been accounted for in studies relating stressful situations and psychological outcomes. These authors suggested a solution to this problem that entails a joint examination of more than one moderator variable. A variable that may aid our understanding of coping processes and outcomes in sport is the subjective importance of the situation, which involves an analysis of perceived endangerment of valued goals. For example, it can be argued that when coping is effective, more pleasant emotional experiences will be reported if the situation was highly important than when it was of moderate or low importance. The need for assessing commitments and valued goals in personenvironment encounters and the way that these factors can influence coping and affect, have also been described in the past by Carver & Scheier (1990) and Folkman (1984). Research on coping in sport is still underdeveloped and there are numerous paths for future studies to aid our understanding of how athletes cope in sport. One such path is to examine the influence of multiple stressors on motivational and affective outcomes and on sport performance. As Lepore & Evans (1996) have argued, individuals usually have to deal with many rather than single situational demands that occur either simultaneously or sequentially. A sport-specific example would be that in a particular competition an athlete may have to cope with injury, coach and spectators’ demands, and with bad environmental conditions. Although there are a number of studies on dealing with a single stressor, there is a dearth of research on coping with multiple stressors. Lepore & Evans (1996) have shown that in some cases the effects of different stressors on psychological outcomes can be additive. However, in other cases the combined effects of the stressors may not be equal to the sum of their independent effects. That is the combined effects can be attenuated (dealing with one stressor can provide better coping resources to deal with following ones), whereas in some other cases they can be potentiated (depletion of coping resources may exacerbate the effects of subsequent stressors). The influence of cultural and social values on coping processes also deserves more close attention from sport psychologists. As Zeidner & Saklofske (1996) have argued, the criteria that individuals choose to appraise situations, select coping strategies, and judge their effectiveness, can be influenced by social norms and values. In sport, for example, the coping strategy of venting of emotions may be more acceptable in some but not in other societies. Most of the research on sport coping has been conducted in the U.S.A. and Australia. However, these societies have many more cultural similarities than differences and, therefore, it would be desirable if future research was expanded into more diverse societies. Further to cross-cultural research, there is a need to look at developmental issues on sport coping. The sample of the present study was homogeneous in terms of age, however there is evidence that coping is subject to developmental changes. For example, Compas et al. (1991) have reported that problem-focused coping appears at a very early age, while

Coping effectiveness and affective outcomes in sport

787

emotion-focused coping is developed in late childhood and early adolescence. It would be interesting to examine in sport if and how coping strategies change during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, whether these changes generalise beyond the sport context, and how they can affect sport motivation and performance. Acknowledgement-The financialsupportof the Greek Foundation the preparation of the manuscript is gratefully acknowledged.

of State Scholarships

(I.K.Y.)

to the first author

during

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