Alterações dos estados de ânimo presentes de jovens atletas de futebol em função do decurso temporal durante um período competitivo

Abstract

Picoli, R. M. M. (2016). Youth soccer players mood changes in function of time course during a competitive season. Dissertacao de Mestrado. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras de Ribeirao Preto. Universidade de Sao Paulo. Ribeirao Preto-SP. There are few studies analyzing the time course of mood during a competitive sport’s season. Although moods seem stable over the time course, different stimuli and present contexts change their intensity and valence. Furthermore, there are psychological phenomena like the decay process, in which information traces lose activation with the passage of time and expectancy, which is a waiting for an occurrence of an event in a given time. Therefore, the aim of this study was to exam mood changes in youth soccer players, grouped by position and role, which occurred during a competitive season, in function of time course. Processes like mood decay and the influence of expectation for the game were analyzed, as well as the influence of context in the athletes’ mood variations. Eighteen young players (15.4 ± 0,266 year-old) from a soccer club, which was playing for a state championship, participated in this study. For the assessment of mood, a short form of Lista de Estados de Ânimo Presentes (LEAP – Present Mood List) was used, along with instructions to fill the form, applied few moments before some training sessions and matches. Presence values of each LEAP’s Factor were calculated for each participant in each event. The data was collected in three types of events: prior to the last trainning session before the match (Treino-Pre), at a few moments before the match (Pre-jogo) and prior to the first training session after the match. The eighteen players were divided in two groups: Defensive Actions (AD) and Offensive Actions (AO). Results have shown patterns of mood changes, represented by LEAP’s Factors II (Fatigue), VII (Interest) and XII (Serenity), in function of time course, allowing the analysis of mood decay process and the influence of the expectation in these changes. Also, some moods showed different patterns in function of a given time interval (Factors IV – Limerence/Empathy and VII – Interest), as well as different presence values in these time intervals’ comparison. Moreover, Factors III (Hope), V (Physiologic) and XI (Receptivity) have shown patterns of mood changes in function of time course in different intervals of time. Contextual variables, like the outcome of the matches and the sport competition itself, were influential in these changes. Fatigue, hope, empathy, states related to proprioception, interest, receptivity and serenity were the present moods all along the study. The importance of including temporality as an influential variable in neurobiological models is noteworthy, especially in the investigations about subjective aspects like mood.