Sports adaptation to competition in Portuguese athletes: The role of cognitive appraisal

BackgroundAnticipatory grief is common among family caregivers of cancer patients and may be related to caregiver burden, family resilience, psychological capital, cognitive appraisal, and coping strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of cognitive appraisal and coping strategies in the relationship between caregiver burden, family resilience, psychological capital, and anticipatory grief among caregivers of cancer patients.MethodsThis study surveyed from January to September 2023 among 265 caregivers of lung and breast cancer patients in two public hospitals. They completed measures of caregiver burden, family resilience, psychological capital, cognitive appraisal, coping, and anticipatory grief. AMOS software was used to model the data with Bayesian structural equation modeling.ResultsBayesian structural equation modeling results showed that caregiver burden had a direct effect on anticipatory grief. The chain mediating effects for cognitive appraisal tendency and coping tendency between caregiver burden, family resilience, psychological capital, and anticipatory grief, respectively. Coping tendency acted as a mediator between psychological capital and anticipatory grief.ConclusionsThe relationships between caregiver burden, family resilience, and psychological capital with anticipatory grief are embedded in the mediating effects of cognitive appraisal and coping. Early identification and intervention for caregiver burden, family resilience, psychological capital, cognitive appraisal, and coping methods may prevent anticipatory grief in caregivers of cancer patients.

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Appraisal of Health Scale (CAHS). The CAHS was developed to measure multiple dimensions of primary and secondary appraisals associated with health-related events. Items were generated for primary appraisal scales of threat, harm/loss, challenge, and benign/irrelevant, and secondary appraisal coping options and resources. The CAHS was tested in a sample of 201 women with breast cancer. Following tests of item analysis, reliability, and construct and concurrent validity, the CAHS was reduced to 28 items. During factor analysis a four-factor solution explained 60% of the total variance and represented the proposed primary appraisal dimensions. Intercorrelations among primary and secondary appraisals were consistent with theory (p < 0.01). Support for concurrent validity was provided by the clinically relevant differences in appraisal by time since diagnosis. The primary appraisal scale estimates of internal consistency (theta) were all greater that .70. Findings indicated beginning support for reliability and validity of the CAHS as a measure of cognitive appraisal for health-related events.

A Review of Instruments on Cognitive Appraisal of Stress

Nowadays, international communication is becoming more and more frequent. As an international language, English is being studied by college students in more and more countries and regions. In the process of college students’ English learning, anxiety is a psychological factor that has an important influence on the learning effect. When college students feel anxious about learning English, the different cognitive appraisals will lead to different coping styles, which will also affect the degree of anxiety and the learning effect of college students. Therefore, this research uses Chinese college students as the sample and adopts the method of a questionnaire survey to study the relationship among the degree of English learning anxiety, cognitive appraisal, and coping style of college students. It is found that college students tend to adopt more positive coping styles when facing English learning anxiety. Positive coping styles are significantly correlated with secondary appraisal, while negative coping styles are significantly correlated with primary appraisal. In the primary appraisal, the ‘threat’ factor is significantly different from the variables of gender and education of college students. In the secondary appraisal, there is a significant difference between the ‘control expectation’ factor and the educational background variable. The research could provide some evidence support for the intervention of college students’ English learning anxiety in the future.

The relation between job stressors and burnout is well established in the literature. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship are still not clear. This study has the main goal of analysing the mediating role of cognitive appraisal in the relation between occupational stress and burnout. Cognitive appraisals comprise primary appraisals, which are of the significance of a situation to the individual, and secondary appraisals, which involve evaluating the individual's ability to cope with stressors. To test the relationship between appraisals, stress and burnout, structural equation modelling was used in a sample of academic teaching staff (N = 333) working at a public university in Portugal. The participants completed a survey with measures that included their level of stress, cognitive appraisals of aspects of their work, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Educators Survey. The results indicated perceptions of distinct sources of stress on their work activity and a relation between stress, cognitive appraisal and burnout. Most importantly, the results showed that primary and secondary cognitive appraisals partially mediated the relationship between occupational stress and burnout at work, making the relationship between these variables a promising underlying mechanism for explaining responses to work-related stress.

EXAMINING THE MINDFULNESS – STRESS RESISTANCE RELATION: THE MEDIATIONAL ROLE OF AUTONOMY By Melissa P. Holt, B.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Major Director: Kirk Warren Brown, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology Mindfulness – a receptive attentiveness to present experience – has been shown to promote more adaptive emotion regulation (Brown, et al. 2007) and predict autonomy motivation to behave in a self-directed manner. In turn, autonomy has been shown to predict self-regulation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This suggests a psychological pathway from mindfulness to autonomy to emotion regulation. To better understand the regulatory potential of a mindful disposition and the possible mediating role of autonomy in healthy adult participants (N = 69), a laboratory social evaluative threat was used called the Trier Social Stress Task (Kirschbaum, et al., 1993). Results showed that mindfulness predicted lower self-reported anxiety but not lower negative affect or endocrine levels. State autonomy during the stressor fully mediated the inverse relation between mindfulness and anxiety. These results support the theory of the emotion regulatory potential of mindfulness, and suggest one means by which this quality may improve well-being. Introduction Stress, a psychological and physiological reaction to challenging or threatening stimuli, has become ubiquitous in the modern world. While stress serves the important purpose of alerting individuals to potential harm or threats in the environment (Selye, 1936) the evolved human capacity to ruminate, worry, and plan for future events can heighten and prolong stress in the face of – or even the absence of – environmental challenges and threats. There is general consensus that stress manifests both psychologically and physiologically (Chida & Hamer, 2008). There is also now widespread recognition that cognitive appraisals, or interpretations of potentially stressful events (as most basically, good, bad, or neutral), are key to determining whether stress and the consequences of it will accrue (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004). This current understanding of the importance of cognitive appraisals is based on Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) influential research detailing the differences between primary and secondary appraisals of stressful events. Primary appraisals are defined as how individuals initially interpret a stimulus as either a threat or a challenge (or as benign). Secondary appraisals involve self-assessments concerning the adequacy of physical, social, and psychological resources at hand to cope with a primary appraised stressor. Research on coping is now well established (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004). A currently active area of stress research seeks to uncover key factors, such as social support (Harvey, Burns, Fahy, et al, 2001) and personality (O'Brien & DeLongis, 1996), that influence whether events are

The aim of this study was to explore which motives dominate among adolescents when it comes to participation in individual versus team sports. We expected that intrinsic motives will dominate in both groups. We also had a hypothesis that those who compete in individual sport will have higher scores on intrinsic and lower on extrinsic motivation than those in team sport. We also expected that intrinsic motives would explain why they had chosen individual sports instead of team sport. The participants were 78 athletes, 39 in team sports and 39 in individual. Participants’ motives were assessed with the Motives for Physical Activity Measure - Revised (MPAM-R). The extrinsic motive “fitness” had highest score in both groups, followed by the intrinsic motives “interest/enjoyment” and “competence”. The only motive with a difference between team and individual sport was the intrinsic motive interest/enjoyment. The participants in team sport had a higher score on interest/enjoyment than those in individual sport. We conducted a regression analyze to explain why pupils chose individual instead of team sports. “Interest/enjoyment” had an explanation when we included this as a single independent variable. If they participated in team sport they had a higher score on the intrinsic motive “interest/enjoyment”. When we included all the motives none of them had an explanation. In conclusion we could not find any differences in motives for participation in team versus individual sport. We also only partly found support for the assumption that adolescents mostly are intrinsic motivated for participating in sport.

This study aimed to determine the level of gross motor development of children aged eight to ten years involved in individual (I) and team (T) sports by using the Tests of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2) method. This study is an ex-post factor involving 360 children in their early schooling stages (M = 180, F = 180). The study involved 2 types of sports: individually (Athletics = 60, Badminton = 60, Taekwondo = 60) and team (Handball = 60, Hockey = 60, Basketball = 60). Descriptive analysis has shown the level of performance for individual sports AEL (M = 8.24, SD = 1.02, DR = Average), AEM (M = 7.16, SD = 0.92, DR = Below Average) and GMDQ (M = 87.87, SD = 5.4, DR = Below Average). For team sports, the age equivalence levels of AEL (M = 8.05, SD = 1.23, DR = Average), AEM (M = 7.84, SD = 1.07, DR = Below Average) and GMDQ (M = 90.02, SD = 6.57, DR = Below Average). There was a significant difference for individual and team sports on the AEL score t (358) = 1.64, p = 0.00. While there was no significant difference for individual and team sports on the AEM score t (358) =-6.45, p = 0.27 and GMDQ t (358) =-3.39, p = 0.06. MANOVA analysis showed that there were significant differences for AEL, AEM and GMDQ scores for athletics, badminton, taekwondo, handball, hockey, and basketball with [F (15,972.12) = 11.82, p &lt;0.001, eta squared = 0.14]. Individual sport types had an AEL age delay of -1.27 years and an AEM of -2.15 years in contrast to team sports with an AEL age delay of -1.25 years and an AEM of only -1.37 years. ANCOVA analysis showed that gender and age could influence the level of gross motor development of individual and team sports. Implementing the gross motor development test provides knowledge and information to teachers and coaches to know athletes’ gross motor acquisition. Teachers and coaches could also design a training program to help athletes strengthen their gross motor development and improve their athletic performance.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between, multidimensional competitive trait anxiety (cognitive and somatic anxiety), trait cognitive threat appraisal, and coping styles. Five-hundred and fifty male and female athletes of several individual and team sports, between the ages of 15 and 35 (M = 19.8 ± 4.5), completed the translated and adapted versions of the Sport Anxiety Scale and of the Brief COPE, as well as the Cognitive Appraisal Scale in Sport Competition – Threat Perception. Pearson and Canonical correlations showed that higher levels of trait cognitive anxiety and threat appraisal were positively related to emotion-focused and avoidance coping and inversely related to problem-focused coping. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of individual differences in trait anxiety and threat appraisals, regarding athletes' coping styles.

Reliable data on the relationships between situational and dispositional coping strategies are sparse. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study examined the determinants and adaptational outcomes of both types of coping. Two hundred and thirty‐three students completed, along with measures of situational and dispositional coping, measures of personality, cognitive appraisals, and psychological distress, the latter variable being evaluated concurrently and prospectively (10 weeks). Results showed that personality shared as much variance with situational as with dispositional coping, but the patterns of relationships were rather different. In addition, cognitive appraisals were found to add significant incremental validity in predicting situational coping beyond trait coping, but primary appraisals were redundant with personality traits, in particular neuroticism. Finally, in spite of the significant amount of variance shared between the two types of coping, they both accounted for individual differences in concomitant and prospective psychological distress, and the relation between dispositional coping and distress was partially mediated by situational coping. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationships between the two types of coping strategy are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Coping styles in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis: Associations with cognitive appraisals

This study tested the mediating role of primary (e.g., threat and challenge perceptions) and secondary (e.g., coping potential and control perception) cognitive appraisal in the relationship between occupational stress and psychological health. This mediation was tested using a cross-sectional study based on self-reported measures. The total sample consisted of 2,302 nurses, 1,895 females (82.3%) and 407 males (17.7%), who completed an evaluation protocol with measures of occupational stress, cognitive appraisal, and psychological health. To test the mediating role of cognitive appraisal in the relationship between cognitive appraisal and psychological health, we used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results confirmed that primary and secondary cognitive appraisals partially mediated the relationship between occupational stress and psychological health; however, the direct effects of stress on psychological health cannot be ignored. The findings indicated that cognitive appraisal is an important underlying mechanism in explaining adaptation at work.

Undergraduate dissertation students’ cognitive appraisal, coping styles and perceived stress were examined at three time points during their undergraduate dissertation projects (UDP), observing whether cognitive appraisal and coping styles predicted perceived stress and their temporal changes. Sixty-four dissertation students completed the Perceived Stress Scale, an adapted Cognitive Appraisal of Health Scale, the Brief COPE and explorative open-ended questions. Linear Regression models for each time-point showed coping styles and cognitive appraisal predicted perceived stress, but single coping styles and primary appraisal harm/loss predicted stress levels inconsistently over time. Analyses indicated significant effects of time-point on primary appraisals benign/irrelevance, harm/loss and challenge but none for secondary appraisal, coping styles or perceived stress. Content Analysis showed perceived stressors and coping styles to be a function of the UDP’s stages and their tasks and challenges. Implications and recommendations for students and supervisors are discussed.

Impact of type D personality on major adverse cardiac events in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: The mediating role of cognitive appraisal and coping style

Depression among elite athletes is a topic of increasing interest and public awareness. Currently, empirical data on elite athletes’ depressive symptoms are rare. Recent results indicate sport-related mechanisms and effects on depression prevalence in elite athlete samples; specific factors associated with depression include overtraining, injury, and failure in competition. One such effect is that athletes competing in individual sports were found to be more prone to depressive symptoms than athletes competing in team sports. The present study examined this effect by testing three possible, psychological mediators based on theoretical and empirical assumptions: namely, cohesion in team or training groups; perception of perfectionistic expectations from others; and negative attribution after failure. In a cross-sectional study, 199 German junior elite athletes (Mage = 14.96; SD = 1.56) participated and completed questionnaires on perfectionism, cohesion, attribution after failure, and depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis using path analysis with bootstrapping was used for data analysis. As expected, athletes in individual sports showed higher scores in depression than athletes in team sports [t(197) = 2.05; p < 0.05; d = 0.30]. Furthermore, negative attribution after failure was associated with individual sports (β = 0.27; p < 0.001), as well as with the dependent variable depression (β = 0.26; p < 0.01). Mediation hypothesis was supported by a significant indirect effect (β = 0.07; p < 0.05). Negative attribution after failure mediated the relationship between individual sports and depression scores. Neither cohesion nor perfectionism met essential criteria to serve as mediators: cohesion was not elevated in either team or individual sports, and perfectionism was positively related to team sports. The results support the assumption of previous findings on sport-specific mechanisms (here the effect between individual and team sports) contributing to depressive symptoms among elite athletes. Additionally, attribution after failure seems to play an important role in this regard and could be considered in further research and practitioners in the field of sport psychology.