Psychological pressure and athletes’ perception of motivational climate in team sports

Efficiency in team sports depends on the strength of the team’s weakest link. Sport practice and a plethora of studies showed that athletes’ performance often deteriorates during competition (Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004; Wilson, Raglin, & Pritchard, 2002). Regardless of whether they are good athletes, many of them are bad competitors. The main reason for this is poor psychological preparation or insufficient mental toughness (Loehr, 1995). A lack of necessary psychological skills is related to the athletes’ appraisal of competitive situations and their own strengths. This results in the negative ratio–athlete’s capacities are perceived as insufficient in comparison to tasks and demands of the competition. The negative ratio contributes to the negative emotions and feelings of pressure and tension that impair competitive performance. The fact is that emotions, regulated by the autonomous nervous system, occur rapidly, and can invade athletes’ consciousness by disturbing of the normal flow of thoughts and actions during competition. Some unpleasant emotional states such as fear, uncertainty, perplexity, anxiety, etc. form the basis for experiencing stress. Moreover, each competition represents a kind of stressful event for almost all athletes and emotions can impede performance routines of even the most competent ones. The feeling of pressure during competition can be caused by different factors, internal and external alike. Internal factors can be represented by some dispositional factors like personality traits, ego strengths, personal beliefs, self-confidence, and previous experience. External factors are, for example, the athlete-coach relationship or the relationships between team-mates, the level of competition, the importance of the game, the presence of audience, and public pressure. There may be more personal exposure associated with individual sports than team sports. It is logical to presume that the feeling of pressure is greater in individual athletes than in athletes participating in team sports. In spite of the fact that this presumption was confirmed in some previous studies (e.g. Han et al., 2006; Simon & Martens, 1979), a recent meta-analysis showed that there is no significant difference in some manifestations of anxiety between individual and team-sport athletes (Woodman & Hardy, 2003). According to these findings, the feeling of pressure can be also elevated in athletes participating in team sports mainly due to the fear of failure and betrayal of others, due to the concern about one’s team-mates, as well as due to the coach’s expectations. On the other hand, there are some factors that can help to lower the competitive pressure. The lower level of individual responsibility, the higher opportunity for social support, and more chance for corrections of mistakes in team sports than in an individual sport can help athletes to Psychological pressure and athletes’ perception of motivational climate in team sports