The Emotional Experiences of Paralympic Swimming Medalists: Not All Wins and Losses Are Equal

Abstract

The goal of this study was to determine if emotional expressions at the end of swimmers’ 2016 Paralympic races varied according to medal won and if their race wins and losses were close or not close. Using FaceReader software, videos of 46 races of medal-winning Paralympic (M age = 24.6; SD = 5.4) swimmers’ faces (78 males and 60 females) from 22 countries were analyzed. Silver medalists were angrier and sadder than gold medalists and angrier and more disgusted than bronze medalists. Swimmers who swam slower than their 2015 best time were angrier than Paralympians who swam faster. Paralympians who finished lower than their 2015 world ranking had more neutral emotions and were less happy than Paralympians who finished higher. Gold medalists who narrowly defeated silver medalists were less happy and more fearful than gold medalists who won easily. Bronze medalists with close wins had fewer neutral emotions and were happier, less angry, and more surprised than bronze medalists with not-close wins. All medalists with close wins were more surprised than medalists with easier wins. Bronze medalists with close losses to silver medalists were happier and less angry than bronze medalists who lost more easily. Effect sizes ranged from d = 0.27 to 1.01. These results provide theoretical support to basic emotion theory and confirm the anecdotal observations that Paralympic competition generates wide-ranging and diverse emotions.

Factors Influencing The 30th SEA Games 2019 Medals Acquisition: Indonesian Case Study

“…Overall, silver medalists are more confident than bronze medalists (Gong, 2021;Kalwij, 2018;Martin, 2021). Bosscher et al, 2009;Kim, Kim, & Lee, 2020;Malcata & Hopkins, 2014).…”

Culture and emotion in Paralympic swimming medalists

“…While the six basic emotions (e.g., sad) are self-explanatory the emotion of neutral reflects a lack of any emotion or no emotions. The Facereader has been successfully used in sport research (Hetland et al, 2018;Martin, 2021) and hundreds of non-sport research publications (Stöckli et al, 2018) and has produced scores deemed valid and reliable.…”

“…Similarly, with few exceptions, research on emotion in disability sport, especially spontaneous emotion in ecologically valid settings, is also scarce (e.g., Martin, 2021). Hence, to address this research gap we developed the current study to examine a cross-cultural theory of emotion (Matsumoto, 1991) with Paralympic athletes.…”

“…Emotional experiences observed in settings such as the Paralympics may also be particularly nuanced. Athletes can experience "disappointing wins" (e.g., winning a bronze medal while being favored to win gold) or "relieving wins" (e.g., third and a bronze medal relative to fourth and no medal; Martin, 2021). Narrow victories may also elicit emotions (e.g., surprise) not present in wins that come more easily while close losses may elicit strong emotions (i.e., anger) relative to losses not considered close (Martin, 2021).…”

“…Athletes can experience "disappointing wins" (e.g., winning a bronze medal while being favored to win gold) or "relieving wins" (e.g., third and a bronze medal relative to fourth and no medal; Martin, 2021). Narrow victories may also elicit emotions (e.g., surprise) not present in wins that come more easily while close losses may elicit strong emotions (i.e., anger) relative to losses not considered close (Martin, 2021). In brief, the interna-tional composition of the Paralympics and its' potential to generate intense emotions makes it an ideal setting to examine cultural identity and emotional diversity.…”