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CASE REPORT
Participant
A 25-year male Judo player with 16 years experience of which 8 years were at International level volunteered to participate in this study. He regularly competed in 'A' class tournaments, which contribute to Olympic and World Championship entry criteria. The competition used in the present study carried European ranking points that would determine selection of Olympic competitors. Olympic selection was reserved for the top ten European players, with the participant ranked in the mid-teens at the time of the competition. To this end, the competition was significant and the outcome personally meaningful. Important goals will increase the likelihood of the individual experiencing emotional reactions (Carver and Scheier, 1990; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Control process theory proposes that goals are hierarchical (Carver and Scheier, 1990). Competing in an Olympic games should be the high point of any athlete's career and so would be associated with a higher order goal. It is suggested that the majority of the competitors in the competition would share this goal, which increases the likelihood of perceiving difficulty of the task.
Measures
Personality:Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ: Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975) was used to assess the personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Considerable research has linked EPQ factors with mood (Costa and McCrae, 1980; Meyer and Shack, 1989; Watson and Clark, 1984; 1992).
Self- esteem:Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale (SES: Rosenberg, 1965) was used to measure self-esteem. The 10-item scale assesses a single self-esteem factor with positive items such as 'On the whole, I am satisfied with myself', and negative items including 'I certainly feel useless at times'. It has been widely used in empirical studies and has proved to be a reliable measure of self-esteem (Sinclair and Vealey, 1989).
Coping: Coping disposition was assessed using the 48-item MCOPE (Crocker and Graham, 1995a). The MCOPE is a sport-specific version of the COPE (Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub, 1989) scale. The MCOPE contains nine of the original 13 scales (with items adapted to sporting situations), and three additional scales based on the research of Crocker, 1992 and Madden et al., 1990. Both the COPE and MCOPE scales have been validated for use as coping disposition measures, and state coping measures (Carver et al., 1989; Crocker and Graham, 1995a). Items are re-worded to correspond to dispositional or situational-specific coping behavior. The validity of the MCOPE is proposed to hold for both trait or state versions (Giacobbi and Weinberg, 2000).
Mood: Mood was assessed using Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS: Terry et al., 1999; 2003). The BRUMS has been comprehensively validated for use in sport. The BRUMS was used in preference to other measures of mood for three reasons: 1) Time of administration is short (60 seconds-3 minutes); 2) the measure has been validated on athletic samples; and 3) normative data are available (Terry et al., 2003).
Performance-related Cognitions: Performance-related cognitions relate to an individual's goals for the event, confidence to achieve these goals, and the effort they intend to employ in the pursuit of those goals. Participants indicated goals for the competition through an open-ended question and could nominate up to three goals.
Self-efficacy for goal attainment was assessed by asking participants to "identify the number that represents how confident you are in achieving each goal today?" on a Likert scale from 'not at all confident' (1) to very confident (9). Intended effort was measured asking "how much effort do you intend to commit to achieve each goal?" on a Likert scale from 'no effort at all' (1) to 'a great deal of effort' (9). Goals are be classified as outcome goals (win/loss), performance goals (personal best/to meet a subjective criteria for playing well), or process goals (related to the performance of a specific action).
| Data were collected at five assessment points: The first assessment point was before competition (pre-competition) where the participant completed an EPQ, a trait MCOPE questionnaire, and the Rosenberg's Self-esteem scale. The goal questionnaire, self-efficacy for goal attainment and intended effort, and a BRUMS asking "How do you feel right now?" was also assessed. The second assessment point was after the first fight (Interval 1); the third assessment point was after the second fight (Interval 2), the fourth assessment was after the third fight (Interval 3), with the final assessment after competition had ended (after the fourth fight). At each interval person-environment, questionnaires recorded any important person-environment interactions, any changes to goals set, self-efficacy for goal achievement and intended effort, mood state, and coping responses (state MCOPE). After the final fight, BRUMS and state MCOPE questionnaires were administered. Pre-competition data were calculated to give scores for neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism, self-esteem, and coping disposition to reflect the individual's stable personality characteristics. The data from each interval for mood was converted to T-scores using norms reported by Terry et al., 2003 and the state coping responses were classified in terms of MCOPE coping styles. |
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Highlights from Athens |
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RESULTS
The participant won his first two fights then lost the next and entered the reportage, in which he faced a player who had previously won a bronze medal at the Judo World Championships. The participant lost this fight and was eliminated from the competition.
Pre-competition assessments of personality and psychological state variables indicate high extraversion, low neuroticism, and low psychoticism (Published norms for adults are: Extraversion = 14, neuroticism = 10, psychoticism = 4, Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975, see Table 1). He reported moderately high levels of self-esteem in comparison to scores on the Rosenberg scale assessed in sport (see Lane et al., 2002). 'Seeking social support for instrumental reasons', 'self-blame', 'planning', 'suppression of competing activities', 'increasing effort', 'wishful thinking', and 'active coping' as general coping dispositions were identified as the primary coping strategies.
He indicated that his primary goal was to win the first contest, of which the participant was quite confident of achieving, and was intending to commit a great deal of effort to the task. He was confident about attaining two performance goals. Pre-competition goals were outcome and performance based, supporting the notion that athletes use a combination of types of goal (Jones and Hanton, 1996).
After the first two bouts (which he won) there were no perceived person-environment interactions significant enough to change goals, though mood state did change and coping behaviors were adopted at each interval (Figure 2 illustrates the mood state at each assessment stage). At interval 1 (post first bout and pre-second bout), fatigue increased and vigor decreased by at least one standard deviation in comparison to normative data reported by Terry et al. (2003). At interval 2 (post second bout, pre third bout), anger, depression, fatigue increased notably, while tension and vigor showed slight increases. Coping behaviors at interval 1 were consistent with trait coping disposition.
After the first two bouts (which he won) there were no perceived person-environment interactions significant enough to change goals, though mood state did change and coping behaviors were adopted at each interval (Figure 2 illustrates the mood state at each assessment stage). At interval 1 (post first bout and pre-second bout), fatigue increased and vigor decreased by at least one standard deviation in comparison to normative data reported by Terry et al., 2003. At interval 2 (post second bout, pre third bout), anger, depression, fatigue increased notably, while tension and vigor showed slight increases. Coping behaviors at interval 1 were consistent with trait coping disposition.
At interval 3, a significant person-environment interaction caused the participant to change his performance-related goals. It is suggested that this interaction was caused by the knowledge of facing a difficult opponent. Self-efficacy for goal achievement was only moderate, though intended effort remained high. Scores on confusion and tension increased. Coping behaviors at Interval 3 indicated that the participant was concentrating on the task ahead, by making plans, discussing tactics with others, and attempting to suppress competing activities.
After the fourth fight (see post-competition column, Table 2) and being eliminated from the competition, mood changed dramatically. Anger increased by more than four standard deviations, depression by more than six, and fatigue by one. Tension and vigor both decreased by more than two standard deviations, with only confusion remaining relatively stable from the previous assessment (though this is notably greater than the pre-competition score). Changes to coping behaviors were again evident. Wishful thinking, self-blame and active coping strategies were employed, while suppression of competing activities, seeking social support for instrumental reasons, and increasing effort were no longer used.
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Fitness and Nutrition 
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