Differences in Mood Among Elite Athletesin Artistic Roller, Figure, and Inline Speed SkatingBefore and After Competition

Abstract

This study explored whether elite artistic skating athletes differ from elite inline speed skating athletes in terms of mood as assessed before and after competition. Its secondary purpose was to determine whether mood states in athletes generally differ before competition, as compared to after. Thirty-nine athletes in artistic and inline speed skating participated in this study during the German national and European championships. Participants were top-ranked elite skaters, including 17 German national champions, nine European and four World champions as well as four participants in recent Olympic Games. Artistic skaters exhibited more delight and less listlessness both before and after competition. Inline speed skaters reported greater arousal before competition, whereas artistic skaters reported more arousal after competition. All skaters reported more activation before competition as compared to after competition. These results have implications for athletes' preparation for and participation in sports competition.

The relations between self-efficacy, competition success, delight, self-esteem, and body-care among elite artistic roller skaters.

“…The subscale has excellent internal consistency with coefficient alpha estimated to be .91. Construct validity of the instrument is good (Barkhoff & Heiby, 2004b; Kazen, 2006; Kazen, Baumann & Kuhl, 2005).…”

“…Studies have found a relation between self-efficacy ratings and various positive emotional states among a range of types of athletes (Abele & Brehm, 1984; Feltz, 1982; Feltz & Mugno, 1983; Kavanagh & Hausfeld, 1986; LeUnes & Burger, 2000; Skinner & Brewer, 2004; Stevens & Lane, 2001; Terry, 1995; Terry & Lane, 2000; Thayer, 1996). In addition, Barkhoff and Heiby (2004b) found that elite artistic roller skaters reported more delight before and after competition compared to elite inline speed skaters. However, the relation between the positive emotional state of delight and self-efficacy among artistic roller skaters remains unexplored.…”

Affect in Sporting Activities: a Preliminary Validation of the Worcester Affect Scale

“…As there is a common difficulty with access to and therefore, measurement of participants during sporting situations, assessing the effects and changes of affect, mood or emotion during activity have not been well documented (Baker, Denniston, Zabora, Polland & Dudley, 2002;Malouff, Schutte & Ramerth, 1985;Västfjäll & Gärling, 2007;Wilhelm & Schoebi, 2007). This important process may have been hindered in the past due to the overly long psychometric measures available (Barkoff & Heiby, 2005). This paper proposes to address this issue by seeking to create and validate an affect scale which could be used to collect feeling states during a physical activity.…”

“…However, more explicit definitions describe emotion as an immediate response to a specific stimulus, whereas mood is considered to be a less intense more general response which is not linked to a triggering stimulus (Diener & Iran-Nejad, 1986;Jones, 2003;Lane et al, 2005). Affect is usually related to an overall concept of valence encompassing both mood and emotion and classifying them as positive or negative (Barkoff & Heiby, 2005;Lane et al, 2005). Additionally, the resultant person by situation interactions which occur in every day experiences can influence or impact on an individuals' psychological state and have been collectively described as affect (Duncan & Barrett, 2007).…”

“…Physical activity and sport has been shown to have beneficial positive effects on affect (Barkoff & Heiby, 2005;Carels et al, 2007;Jones, 2003;Russell, Pritschet, Frost, Emmett, Pelley, Black & Owen, 2003). In some instances, the difficulty in measuring affect pre and post activity seems to be timing the administration of the instrument to enable sufficient time for completion and being confident that the upcoming or previous activity is responsible for the resulting data.…”