Emotions in Team Contact Sports: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This study systematically reviewed the literature on the emotional processes associated with performance in team contact sports. To consider the entire emotional spectrum, Lazarus’s (1999) cognitive motivational relational theory was used as a guiding framework. An electronic search of the literature identified 48 of 5,079 papers as relevant. Anxiety and anger were found to be the most common emotions studied, potentially due to the combative nature of team contact sports. The influence of group processes on emotional experiences was also prominent. The findings highlight the need to increase awareness of the emotional experience in team contact sports and to develop emotion-specific regulation strategies. Recommendations for future research include exploring other emotions that might emerge from situations related to collisions (e.g., fright) and emotions related to relationships with teammates (e.g., guilt and compassion).

Anxiety and burnout in young athletes: The mediating role of cognitive appraisal

“…Again, findings on this subject are scarce, but competitive level and sport records are important variables in the explanation of athletes' reactions to sports. 42 In summary, this study highlights the importance of cognitive appraisal on athletes' adaptation to sports considering the relation between trait anxiety and burnout. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to test these specific mediating relations.…”

“…It is interesting to note that individual attributes of athletes and characteristics of sports are involved in emotional experiences and adaptation of athletes to sports. 42,60 For example, there is evidence that elite players interpret their anxiety symptoms as more facilitating than non-elite players. 61 However, our results confirm that, when considered together, the relation between anxiety, cognitive appraisal, and burnout is invariant, meaning that cognitive appraisal is a key variable in explaining athletes' burnout experiences in sports despite their level of competition or sport success.…”

Measuring Psychobiosocial States in Sport: Initial Validation of a Trait Measure

“…Adjectives of the Anger(+) modality (i.e., fighting spirit, fierce, aggressive) were included in the functional subscale in line with findings of previous research indicating that anger can play an important role in the generation or mobilization of energy [21, 62, 63]. In collision and combat sports in particular, such as rugby and karate, athletes can experience properly harnessed anger symptoms as necessary to increase effort toward task achievement and outperform the opponent [64–66].…”

“I control my own emotions for the sake of the team”: Emotional self-regulation and interpersonal emotion regulation among female high-performance curlers

“…In a recent systematic review of the team contact sport literature (e.g., rugby, football, ice hockey), Campo, Mellalieu, Ferrand, Martinent, and Rosnet (2012) described team sport athletes' emotions, as well as antecedents, coping responses, and moderators of athletes' emotional experiences. Results highlighted the importance of social influences on athletes' emotional experiences, as the influence of others (e.g., negative relationships, criticism, teammates' behaviours) was identified as an antecedent of athletes' negative emotions in over 58% of the studies they reviewed, whereas athletes' own errors (e.g., physical or mental errors) were reported as antecedents of negative emotions in 52.9% of the reviewed studies.…”