Abstract
In recent years, rock climbing has become increasingly popular around the world. However, due to its challenging and competitive nature, it is common for rock climbers to encounter frustration. It leads to negative emotions, reducing participation, and withdrawal behavior, which requires effective self-regulation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the causes and self-regulatory mechanisms of frustration in rock climbing. Using qualitative methods, 15 rock climbers were interviewed, and 6 themes were identified by thematic analysis. Task comparison and social comparison are the main causes of frustration in rock climbing. The self-regulatory mechanism of task comparative frustration includes focusing on tasks and habitual reflection. The self-regulatory mechanism of social comparative frustration involves emotion regulation and changing goal orientation. It is suggested that future rock climbers, especially beginners, deal with frustration through the self-regulatory mechanisms that can help them enjoy and pursue rock climbing.
Highlights
Frustration is defined as a feeling of dissatisfaction due to unmet needs or lack of progress or inability to progress towards a goal due to limited skills and difficult tasks[1]
The study found that task comparison and social comparison were the main causes of rock climbing frustration
The rock climbers who were interviewed in this study provided in-depth insights, shared their frustration experiences, and concluded their self-regulatory efforts
Summary
Frustration is defined as a feeling of dissatisfaction due to unmet needs or lack of progress or inability to progress towards a goal due to limited skills and difficult tasks[1]. Sport participants are vulnerable to experience frustration because they often deal with stress, failure, and setbacks in sport[2,3]. Frustration experiences can result from unable to achieve one's goal, poor performance, an unwanted/unplanned competitive outcome, injury, performance plateau, or time constraints[5,6,7,8]. The inability to effectively self-regulate frustration leads to sports participants experience low positive affect, poor social functioning, high distress, less than optimal performance, exercise dropout behavior, sport withdrawal[9,10]. Some psychological research explored the regulatory mechanism of frustration, but the quantity and quality are still insufficient
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