Stress Sources of Hockey Referees and the Emotion-Centered Approaches that they Use to Cope

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the stress sources of hockey referees and the emotion-centered approaches that they use to cope with these stress sources according to demographic characteristics. For this purpose, 69 of the 150 hockey referees who were active in the 2021-2022 Indoor Season constituted the sample of the study. The data of the study were collected by adapting the items of the Stress Scale developed by Erdem (2015) for wrestling referees to hockey referees. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used in the analysis. The findings showed that according to averages; hockey referees think “wrong decision” as the most, and as for ranking; “verbal attack by the coach,” “verbal attack by the players,” “verbal attack by the spectators,” “threat of physical attack by others” and “attempt by the referees higher category than you to influence your decisions during the competition” as sources of stress; it points out that they use a “positive cognitive approach” as a coping method. However, stress sources are by gender and referee category; methods of coping with stress also differ according to age, marital status and refereeing category. As a result, it is possible to say that hockey referees use positive cognitive approach to cope with wrong decision-making, the threat of physical and verbal attacks and performance concerns that stress them; the refereeing category is both a source of stress and a determining demographic variable in coping with stress.