Committed relationships and enhanced threat levels: Perceptions of coach behavior, the coach–athlete relationship, stress appraisals, and coping among athletes

Adam R Nicholls,Rudi Meir,Leigh Jones,Jon N Radcliffe,Andrew R Levy,John L Perry

doi:10.1177/1747954115624825

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess an a priori model that included perceptions of coach behavior, coach–athlete relationship, stress appraisals, and coping. A total of 274 athletes from the United Kingdom, Austalia, and Hong Kong completed relevant measures that assessed each construct. Our results revealed that perceptions of coach behavior were associated with aspects of the coach–athlete relationship and stress appraisals. In particular, closeness was positively associated with challenge appraisals and negatively with threat appraisals. However, commitment was positively associated with threat, indicating that there might be some negative implications of having a highly committed coach–athlete relationship. Further, commitment was also positively associated with disengagement-oriented coping, which has previously been linked to poor performance and lower goal-attainment. Applied practitioners could monitor athlete’s perceptions of the coach–athlete relationship, particularly commitment levels, and provide training in appraising stress and coping to those who also score highly on threat and disengagement-oriented coping, but low on task-oriented coping.

Highlights

Participating in competitive sport has been associated with athletes reporting a variety of stressors such as errors, performance, and concerns about the outcome of a competition [1]
Pearson correlations were used in favor of the latent factor correlations from structural equation modeling because the amount of latent variables examined at this stage would have required a sample size far larger than was available
We found a negative path between supportive coaching behaviors and perceptions of threat, implying that there is a negative association between these constructs

Summary

Introduction

Participating in competitive sport has been associated with athletes reporting a variety of stressors such as errors, performance, and concerns about the outcome of a competition [1]. Given that an athlete’s perception of his or her relationship is associated with happiness and that coaches are a source of stress [2], it is plausible to assume that perceptions of the coach-athlete relationship would be related to how an athlete evaluates stress and coping, given that appraisal determines the emotional responses such as happiness and coping [4]. Little is known about how the coach-athlete relationship may influence appraisals of stress, and whether the coach-athlete relationship is related to coping. This is surprising given that research has documented a relationship between coach behavior and coping [5,6]. In this study we tested a priori model that included coach behavior, the coachathlete relationship, primary appraisals of threat and challenge, and coping among a sample of athletes

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion