Psychological capital and pre-competition anxiety among adolescent basketball players: the chain mediating roles of mental fatigue and achievement motivation

Objective This study aimed to explore the association mechanism between psychological capital and pre-competition anxiety in adolescent basketball players, and to verify the independent and chain mediating roles of mental fatigue and achievement motivation. Methods A total of 510 Chinese adolescent basketball players from Sichuan Province completed the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Athlete Burnout Questionnaire, Individual Differences in Achievement Tendency Scale, and Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 24 h pre-competition. Results Psychological capital was positively correlated with state self-confidence and negatively correlated with cognitive/somatic anxiety and mental fatigue ( p < 0.01); mental fatigue was positively associated with state anxiety ( p < 0.01); achievement motivation correlated positively with state self-confidence and negatively with state anxiety ( p < 0.05). Mental fatigue (indirect effect = −0.096) and achievement motivation (indirect effect = −0.039) independently partially mediated the psychological capital-pre-competition anxiety link; achievement motivation also mediated psychological capital and state self-confidence (indirect effect = 0.078). Additionally, mental fatigue and achievement motivation exerted a chain mediating effect (indirect effect = 0.011) between psychological capital and pre-competition anxiety. Conclusion Psychological capital is directly negatively associated with pre-competition anxiety in adolescent basketball players and indirectly alleviates anxiety by reducing mental fatigue and optimizing achievement motivation. Based on the above findings, targeted psychological interventions for different subgroups of adolescent basketball players are proposed as follows: improve psychological capital and reduce failure-avoidance motivation for younger athletes; address reduced sense of accomplishment for centers; strengthen pre-competition physical relaxation training for females; and provide more competitive opportunities for substitutes to build self-confidence.