2026-09-01T12:26:30.444Z http://ezaposleni.singidunum.ac.rs/rest/sciNaucniRezultati/oai

ezaposleni.singidunum.ac.rs/rest/sciNaucniRezultati/oai:1:5045 2017-04-28T15:46:04Z 1

Psychological profile characteristics of Serbian elite athletics 2012 http://ezaposleni.singidunum.ac.rs/rest/sciNaucniRezultati/oai/record/1/5045 LJ. Bačanac V. Kitanović M. Nikolić T. Ćirković Introduction Numerous past studies revealed that psychological characteristics that influence athletes’ success are not general personality traits, but level of development and usage of psychological characteristics and skills that are specific to sports situations, because these characteristics include personality traits of the athletes and specific demands of competitive sports situations at the same time (interactionist approach). The aim of this study is to examine the association between competitive anxiety, sports confidence, athletic coping skills and gender, age and sports experience. Method Sixty elite Serbian athletics (male=29, female=31), with an average age 20 years and an average sports experience of 10 or more years, participated in the study. The variables which were measured in this research were: competitive anxiety operacionalised through SCAT-c questionaire (Bačanac, 1989), sports self-confidence operacionalized through Sport Confidence Inventory (SCI, Vealey & Knight, 2008), athletic coping skills operacionalized through Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI-28, Smith et al., 1995), gender, age and sports exeperience. Analysis of variance, t-test and correlation analysis were conducted. Results and discussion Results reveiled that female athletics, compared to male athletics, and athletics with less sports experience, compared to athletics with more experience, have higher competitive anxiety (which means that they show more symptoms of cognitive and somatic arousal before competitive situations) and lower sports confidence. Male athletics have better developed athletic coping skills than female athletics (t=2.99, p=.004), particularly: they better cope with adversity, have more developed coachability (they react positively to coaches’ critics and suggestions), have more confidence, achievement motivation and less negative thoughts, worries and fears of failure. Results showed that there is no correlation between age of athletics and both competitive anxiety and athletic coping skills. There is positive correlation between age and sports confidence, particularly level of confidence in cognitive efficacy (r=0.434, p<.01) and psychological resilience (r=0.417, p<.01). Conclusion We can conclude, based on the results of this study, that the sports experience is the most important factor of self-confidence of athletics and that gender has the most important influence on intensity of competitive anxiety and level of development of athletic coping skills. Key words: athletics, competitive anxiety, sports confidence, athletic coping skills conferenceObject 667 676 796/799(082) 371.3::796(082) Proceedings of the thematic conference