Anxiety Disorders Linked to Superstitious Beliefs in Festish-Motivated Footballers

Abstract

The objective of our study was to examine the development of superstitious beliefs in footballers in relation to their emotional instability. This was a descriptive study based on the clinical research interview conducted with a sample of university footballers. Sixteen semi-structured interviews made it possible to collect information on present and past fetishist practices, attitudes and emotions. The participants were recruited by snowball sampling among students enrolled in the 3rd year of a sports license, football option at the Higher Institute of Physical and Sports Education. The average age of the subjects was 21.76±1.95 years. The average duration of football practice in the community was 4.37 years. Cultural expectations related to the obsession with sports victory demonstrated the traditional use of fetishes such as <i>Nkama</i> (22.22%), <i>Mokoyi</i> (42.85%), <i>Ndami</i> (22.22%), <i>Mutoyo</i> (22.22%), <i>Pimba</i> (44.44%), <i>Soukaka</i> (11.11%). For 39.17% of respondents, the emotion of folk music exerts a repulsive force on the adversary. This is intended for the personification of the spirit tamed by the witch doctor by 34.82% of footballers. It is an exhibition of the drive body for 12.31% of footballers in order to limit the opponent's attentional resources. And, 13.7% consider it as the cause of the opponent's falls on the field. The permanent immersion of footballers in superstitious rituals almost explains their adherence to ancestral beliefs in relation to pseudoscientific ideas of the environment. On the one hand, the results consider that the perpetuation of these beliefs leads to abnormal behaviors, which interfere with cognitions prone to anxious emotions. But the level of environmental alienation constitutes a brake against the importance of a psychological consultation, which is almost absent or almost unthought. On the other hand, fetishistic consultations are the consequence of the ignorance of the appropriate techniques of mental preparation by the sportsmen. Beyond that, the results show how the psychopathologist can seize this object by managing to overcome these irrational and paralyzing beliefs through cognitive and behavioral techniques.