Helping Collegiate Athletes Manage Performance Stress: The Role of Coaching Climates

This study examined whether the coach-initiated motivational climate on collegiate teams predicts adverse responses to performance stress in athletes and whether athletes feel that playing on their team contributes to, or helps them manage, their negative life stress. A total of 103 National Collegiate Athletic Association athletes (66 women; 37 men) reported perceptions of a caring climate, task-involving climate, and ego-involving climate on their teams, perceptions of negative evaluation and judgment (psychosocial stressors), and experiences of shame and embarrassment while playing. Athletes were also asked whether playing on their team adds to, or helps them, better manage their negative life stress. Hypercompetitive, winning-centered climates where athletes are compared to one another and punished for mistakes (ego-involving climates) were linked to more deleterious stress responses, positively predicting athletes’ experiences of shame and embarrassment and the feeling that playing on their team adds to their negative life stress. Supportive, athlete-centered climates (caring and task-involving) were protective.