The purpose of the study was to evaluate measures of competitiveness, motivational orientation, and perceived purposes of participation as predictors of sportsmanship in a sample of 319 young participants in sports. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that intrinsic reasons for sports participation, such as enhanced self-esteem and task mastery, predicted higher levels on multiple dimensions of sportsmanship, above and beyond the influence of competitiveness, motivational orientation, and various demographic variables. In contrast, extrinsic purposes for participation in sports, such as to obtain social status and a high-status career, contributed to lower levels on 3 of the 4 sportsmanship dimensions. These results are discussed with regard to developing a competitive sport setting that promotes ethical standards of interpersonal behavior for young participants in sports.

Research suggests that social support moderates or "buffers" the impact of stress on the individual and thus indirectly affects emotional well-being (Cohen and Wills, 1985). The present study sought to extend the "buffering hypothesis" to competitive sport by examining the influence of perceived coach support on competitive state anxiety among young athletes (N = 270). Results from confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) substantiated the validity of the sport-modified Social Provisions Scale (Russell and Cutrona, 1984;Ryska and Yin, 1994). Structural equation modeling analyses revealed a significant support-anxiety effect in the high trait-anxious model only (r = -.27, p < .05). The present results suggest that perceived coach support represents an important mediating factor in the sport stress process among highly anxious athletes.A recent proliferation of social psychology research has investigated the role of social support in reducing ill-health effects due to life stress. Studies conclude that individuals who receive high levels of social support tend to suffer fewer negative health consequences following stressful events than those receiving less support (Dean and Lin, 1977;Davis-Sacks et al., 1985). However, social support has minimal impact on an individual's physical or psychological status in the absence of life stress (Argyle and Little, 1972;Cassel, 1974). This "buffering effect" of social support has been demonstrated in a variety of contexts such as life crises (Lepore et al., 1991), unemployment and job stress (Gore, 1978;Richman, and Rosenfeld, 1987), physical and mental illness (Hammer, 1981;Leavy, 1983), and transitional to parenthood (Cutrona, 1984).Although the mechanisms underlying the support-stress relationship have not been clearly identified, Taylor's (1985) cognitive adaptation model provides a possible explanation of the stress-buffering role of social support. In order to cope with threatening events, an individual must arrive at a personal meaning of the event, regain control over themselves, and maintain an adequate level of self-esteem. Although social support plays an integral role in each of these cognitive processes for threatened individuals, it has less impact for those individuals who do not perceive their environment as particularly stressful.For most young athletes, competitive sport represents an enjoyable process of self-discovery. It is common for young sport participants to develop positive goal-oriented behavior and self-confidence as they strive to improve their sport ability.

Initial evidence suggests that the employment of self-handicapping strategies has a beneficial effect on negative affective states associated with the perceived threat of evaluative contexts (Harris & Snyder, 1986;Leary, 1986). The present study sought to describe the type of self-handicapping behaviors demonstrated by youth athletes (N=238) as well as to assess the stress-buffering role of athlete self-handicapping on indices of competitive state anxiety. Specifically, it was hypothesized that among high trait-handicapping athletes, those who report a greater degree of perforrnmlce-debilitating obstacles prior to competition would demonstrate lowered cognitive and somatic state anxiety as well as greater state self-confidence than nonhandicapping athletes. However, MANOVA results indicated that both high trait and situational self-handicappers demonstrate elevated state anxiety immediately prior to competition. Results are discussed in relation to the possible role of state anxiety as a salient self-handicapping strategy within competitive sport.As suggested by Jones and Berglas (1975), individuals not only have an implicit knowledge of attributional principles but actually manipulate their surroundings and themselves in order to produce positive attributions regarding their own behavior. Stemming from an individual's "abnormal investment in the question of self-worth" (Jones & Berglas, 1974), self-handicapping has come to represent the proactive use of strategic behavior in the forms of reduced effort or self-reported excuses in order to protect one's self-esteem and sense of personal competence from threat. These self-effacing tactics are used by threatened athletes as a means of coping with situations characterized by uncertainty of successful outcome. It seems contradictory that maladaptive cognitions or behaviors, which act as obstacles to achievement, could conceivably provide a positive function for the athlete, affording her an excuse for inadequate performance or other negative self-referent feedback. These self-imposed obstacles serve to minimize one's responsibility for potentially unfavorable outcomes as well as reduce the expectations of others involved in the evaluative context of training or competition. In other words, a self-handicapping strategy allows the athlete to control the causal attribution of a potential success or failure, thereby minimizing the perceived loss of self-esteem and its accompanying emotional distress. By advanc-

The interaction between an individual's abilities and the perceived demands of the workplace appears to make a unique contribution to job-related stress above and beyond that of dispositional or situational factors alone (R. S. Lazarus, 1990). In the present study, the author evaluated this contention among 245 male intercollegiate athletic directors by assessing the combined influence of leadership style and program goals on occupational stress. Regression analyses revealed the presence of both significant main effects and interaction effects of leadership style and program goals in the prediction of emotional exhaustion, daily job stress, and personal accomplishment. Findings are discussed in terms of person-environment fit theory (J. R. P. French, R. D. Caplan, & R. V. Harrison, 1982) and the notion of perceived control within the occupational setting.

Although cognitive-behavioral strateg ies have been demonstrated relatively effective in improving sport performance and regulating various affective states among highly skilled athletes, the strategy-anxiety relationship has been left largely untested within the realm of recreational sport. The present study utilized self-report data from 186 recreational league tennis players in order to describe the prevalence, types, sources, and perceived effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral strategy use among a sub-elite sample as well as to determine the extent to which each strategy contributed to changes in cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and self-confidence prior to official competition. Nearly 30% of the sample reported using strategies in training and competition , comprised by relaxation, mental imagery, attention control , positive self-talk, and goal-setting . Stepwise regression analyses controlling for player characteristics revealed that attentional control and goal-setting strategies contributed to lower cognitive state anxiety, attention control and imagery/ relaxation strategies resulted in lower somatic state anxiety, and attention control and positive self-talk contributed to increased state self-confidence. The role of specific cognitive-behavioral techniques in facilitating adaptability to competitive stress among recreational athletes is discussed.