rhet 201 portfolio
Post on 17-Mar-2016
217 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Youssef2
Table of contents:
Cover letter 3
Journals 4-18
Annotated Bibliography draft 19-23
Draft 1 24-28
Draft 2 29-47
Draft 3 48-70
Final draft 71-93
Presentation slides 94-99
Youssef3
Cover letter:
This is my Rhet 201 class portfolio that too place during the summer of 2012 at
the American University in Cairo. I decided to organize my portfolio according to the
sequence of work that I did in this class. So everything that I wrote during this class is put
in the portfolio in the order that it was done by. I find this a better way for me and
everyone to see the improvement that happened in my writing from the very first journal
that I have wrote until the final draft of my research paper. This made me realize how my
writing improved throughout this course, and how each draft improved from the one
before it after the conferences with Dr. Gibson.
Honestly, this is the course that I enjoyed the most in the American University in
Cairo so far. The classes are very exciting and the atmosphere of the class is always
encouraging us to work harder. Being able to chose a topic of my own was really helpful
as it made working in the paper more interesting as I was eager to know more about
something that I like and very related to my life. My favorite part of the course was
seeing the free journal writing becoming academic to be put in the research paper.
Finally, I think that I did in the research paper better than I ever expected to do in
the beginning of this course. I never knew that writing a research paper would be so fun
and that I would benefit from it this much. I would really like to thank Doctor Michael
Gibson for such an amazing course and this great writing experience.
Youssef4
Journals
Journal 1: June 10, 2012:
Topics:
The nature of champion’s life. How being a champion affects the way in which they
interact with others and how their time is distributed.
How getting extremely involved into sports affects the person positively, negatively, and
psychologically?
Why the nature of the relationship between parents and their children differs from one
country to another. And how is it different?
Why do some people over think than other person? Why does over thinking happen? And
can it be psychologically cured?
Chosen topic:
I am interested in topics related to sports and psychology, so I decided to combine
both of them together in one topic and chose to write about ‘Sport Physiology.’ I would
be more specific about and write about the psychological differences between athletes
and non-athletes.
I have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing
squash until I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I
have experienced being a recreational athlete for a while and being a competitive athlete
for another few years in my life. During all those years I have realized that there are
Youssef5
some differences in many things between the athletes and the non-athletes. I know that
the way of life of the athletes totally differ from the non-athletes. They have more
important priorities that make them spend their lives differently from any other person. I
have been experiencing, until now, that me and my athletic friends have different points
of view than our non athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the
psychological differences between us. I want to know more about how the athletes mind
work and how being an athlete affect their mind’s view of many different things leading
to differences in interacting with the world around them. For example the difference in
their attitudes like the ability to manage stress and the levels of tension, aggression, and
depression among them. Also how being extremely involved in sports affect athlete’s
priorities they have in mind, which later affect the way they interact with other people
and with issues in the world.
Journal 2: June 11, 2012:
6 Sources
Sports psychology is a very wide topic, so while searching for information about
it I limited my search about the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes. While searching about this topic, I also found that there are some psychological
differences in few aspects between normal athletes who are involved in physical activity
but not totally committed to a specific sport, and professional athletes who are highly
committed to a sport by taking practicing seriously and participate in worldwide
tournaments.
Youssef6
In Clayton Matthew’s book “The Athletic Environment of The High School: A
Description of Socio-psychological Differences Between Male Athletes and Non-
Athletes”, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between
athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include self-attitudes, behaviors, personal
attitudes, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of this research are
that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes, and that there is a
relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it is higher in athletes.
Athletes feel that they are special than others in a good thing by participating in a sport,
especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons that increase self-
esteem in athletes. Athletes are also more likely than non-athletes to have strong
motivational drives for self-development and academic achievement because they are
usually having a goal in mind that they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic
field, which implies lately in most aspects of their life.
In the research “The Relationship Between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes” by Michele Parisi, he talks about how sports and physical
activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression
symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was done on students and it
shows that students who participate in sports and involved in consistently physical
activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression
than non-athletes. They also experience higher feeling of self-esteem than students who
do not participate in any sports or physical exercise.
There is a difference when talking about stress regarding normal athletes and
professional athletes. In the Journal of Sport Behavior “Self-Reported Psychopathology
Youssef7
in Athletes: A Comparison of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes and Non-Athletes”, the
study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and professional
athletes to the normal and non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in
a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good
performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension
on athlete’s emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic
commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist
because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate
and professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than normal and
non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks
for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for
counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety,
depression, and performance related issues” (Murray, 1997).
In the article “Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-
Athletes” by Parul Sharma, Jaspal S. Sandhu, and Shweta Shenoy, they discuss how
athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the
different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The different techniques that
are discussed in this study include Avoidance, Cognitive Control, Social Support, and
Activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than
non-athletes because of all the athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that
the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training.
“The Comparison Between Resiliency and Mental Health Among Athletes and
Non-Athletes” is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and mental
Youssef8
health, specially their ability to cope with stress. The results of the study show that
athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The results also show
that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better mental health profile than
non-athletes and influences resiliency.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It
is an important question that was asked by Alex Krumer, Tal Shavit and Mosi Rosenboim
in their paper. The aim of their paper is to compare time preferences and subjective time
discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The study shows that professional
athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the
future. The study also shows that athletes discount time more than non-athletes so they
consume in the present more than in the future. Athlete’s time preferences differ from
non-athletes Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-
athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference
between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future.
Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in
the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present
to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life.
Journal 1+2 (review): June 13, 2012:
Topics:
• The nature of champion’s life. How being a champion affects the way in which
they interact with others and how their time is distributed.
Youssef9
• How getting extremely involved into sports affects the person positively,
negatively, and psychologically?
• Why the nature of the relationship between parents and their children differs from
one country to another. And how is it different?
• Why do some people over think than other person? Why does over thinking
happen? And can it be psychologically cured?
Chosen topic:
I am interested in topics related to sports and psychology, so I decided to combine
both of them together in one topic and chose to write about ‘Sport Physiology.’ I would
be more specific about and write about the psychological differences between athletes
and non-athletes.
I have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing
squash until I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I
have experienced being a normal athlete for a while and being an intercollegiate athlete
for another few years in my life. During all those years I have realized that there are
some differences in many things between the athletes and the non-athletes. I know that
the way of life of the athletes totally differ from the non-athletes. They have more
important priorities that make them spend their lives differently from any other person. I
have been experiencing, until now, that me and my athletic friends have different points
of view than our non athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the
psychological differences between us. I want to know more about how the athletes mind
work and how being an athlete affect their mind’s view of many different things leading
Youssef10
to differences in interacting with the world around them. For example the difference in
their attitudes like the ability to manage stress and the levels of tension, aggression, and
depression among them. Also how being extremely involved in sports affect athlete’s
priorities they have in mind, which later affect the way they interact with other people
and with issues in the world.
Sports psychology is a very wide topic, so while searching for information about
it I limited my search about the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes. While searching about this topic, I also found that there are some psychological
differences in few aspects between normal athletes who are involved in physical activity
but not totally committed to a specific sport, and professional athletes who are highly
committed to a sport by taking practicing seriously and participate in worldwide
tournaments.
6 Sources
1. In Clayton Matthew’s book “The Athletic Environment of The High School: A
Description of Socio-psychological Differences Between Male Athletes and Non-
Athletes”, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between
athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include self-attitudes, behaviors,
personal attitudes, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of
this research are that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes,
and that there is a relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it
is higher in athletes. Athletes feel that they are special than others in a good thing
by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of
Youssef11
the main reasons that increase self-esteem in athletes. Athletes are also more
likely than non-athletes to have strong motivational drives for self-development
and academic achievement because they are usually having a goal in mind that
they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic field, which implies lately
in most aspects of their life.
2. In the research “The Relationship Between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes” by Michele Parisi, he talks about how sports and
physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety
and depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was
done on students and it shows that students who participate in sports and involved
in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of
stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience higher
feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or
physical exercise.
3. There is a difference when talking about stress regarding normal athletes and
professional athletes. In the Journal of Sport Behavior “Self-Reported
Psychopathology in Athletes: A Comparison of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
and Non-Athletes”, the study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of
intercollegiate and professional athletes to the normal and non-athletes and talked
about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively.
The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college
attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athlete’s emotions. Sports
would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another
Youssef12
reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of
unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate and
professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than normal
and non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as
well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate
athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout,
fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray,
1997).
4. In the article “Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-
Athletes” by Parul Sharma, Jaspal S. Sandhu, and Shweta Shenoy, they discuss
how athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes
due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The
different techniques that are discussed in this study include Avoidance, Cognitive
Control, Social Support, and Activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with
pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of all the athletic
atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by
athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training.
5. “The Comparison Between Resiliency and Mental Health Among Athletes and
Non-Athletes” is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and
mental health, specially their ability to cope with stress. The results of the study
show that athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The
results also show that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better
mental health profile than non-athletes and influences resiliency.
Youssef13
6. Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It
is an important question that was asked by Alex Krumer, Tal Shavit and Mosi
Rosenboim in their paper. The aim of their paper is to compare time preferences
and subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The
study shows that professional athletes have high time preference as they value and
focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes
discount time more than non-athletes so they consume in the present more than in
the future. Athlete’s time preferences differ from non-athletes Athletes would
have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly
based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and
non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional
athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the
present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the
present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life.
Journal 3: June 13, 2012:
Research topic: Sports Psychology.
Research question: What are the psychological differences between athletes and
non-athletes? And how is the athlete’s psychological behavior
affected by sports?
When I was looking for more sources about the psychological differences
between athletes and non-athletes, I found a lot of interesting information about sports
psychology and how sports affect the person’s psychology and vice versa. This
Youssef14
encouraged me to focus more on the athlete’s psychology when addressing the
differences. I am still going to compare between both of them since it is the question of
my research, but at the same time I am going to focus a lot on sports psychology and how
the athlete’s psychological behavior is affected by sports.
4 sources
1. In the book “Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology” by Judy L. Van
Raalte and Britton W. Brewer, I found information about the positive relation
between the moderate exercise that is performed daily and mental health.
Exercise is associated with the reduction of depression and anxiety as well as
the improvement of one’s self-esteem, body image, and socialization, which
all add up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning. However all
this differs between athletes and non-athletes depending on their owl level of
involvement in sport or exercise from that of a non-athletes to that of a
professional or a competitive athlete. Regarding the competitive and the
professional athletes it is different. They seem to be at a higher risk with
psychological disorders that normal athletes and non-athletes. Those
psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use
disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety
and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are
exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and
the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn
from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to
develop personality disorders.
Youssef15
2. In the article “Stress and Anxiety in Athletics” by Carly M. Fullerton, I found
new information about this topic. There are many disorders that are related to
stress and anxiety like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), and diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and
respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more
serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle
anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know to manage or treat it.
3. There are many ways people can respond to their injuries, and those ways
differ from an athlete to a non-athlete. The journal “Psychological Responses
to Injuries in Competitive Sports: A Critical Review” talks about the different
psychological ways athletes respond to their injuries to assist rehabilitation.
Those responses include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes not only because of the
well being of their body and its strength, but because coping with the injury is
linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes
well being and his sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position
where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negative
affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the
level of athlete’s stress, but they are more likely to tolerate and endure injuries
pain.
4. The journal “A Personal Developed Model of Sports Psychology for Athletes
with Disabilities” by Jeffrey J. Martin, talks about how sports affect the
psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. Individuals
Youssef16
with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the
society, but being an athlete develop a sense of determination and become
aware of their strengths, it also increases their self-esteem and self-
determination and develop confidence by participating in a society by getting
involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see
personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy
a better quality life.
Journal 4: June 26, 2012:
I did not know at the beginning what questions to write in my questionnaire to ask
people. I then decided to structure my questions to ask people mainly about what they
feel regarding participating in sports and how participating or not participating in sports
affect few aspects in their life. I found that the answers to those questions would let me
know about the psychology of competitive athletes, recreational athletes, and non-
athletes.
I distributed the survey electronically through face book and emails, and
physically by distributing them in my training. The surveys that I distributed physically
were mostly targeting competitive athletes because I distributed them among my
colleagues who practice with me in my squash training. The surveys that I distributed
electronically were mainly targeting my recreational athlete friends and non-athletes. By
this way, I expect to get a good range between competitive, recreational, and non-
athletes, which will help me to answer my research question. Although I still expect the
range of competitive and recreational athletes to be greater than the number of non-
Youssef17
athletes answering my questionnaire because most of my friends and family members are
athletes.
Other than the survey, I was able to conduct an interview with a fitness trainer
who dealt with many competitive and recreational athletes. I asked him to talk to me
about the athletes’ behavior and how participating in sports affect the psychology of
athletes in order to be able to compare it with non-athletes psychology. I found the
information that he provided me very helpful and related to my topic. I even think that
the information that I am going to provide based on the interview would be more
informative than the information that I am going to provide based on the survey answers.
Journal 5: July 5, 2012:
Beginning the I-search paper by doing some research about the topic was
interesting as I gained some information I did not know about before. It was hard trying
to find many sources related to my topic that preferably shows different perspectives and
point of views. The first two weeks passed and the fun work started. I was asked by
professor Gibson to conduct a questionnaire to distribute among people in order to know
their perspective and knowledge about the topic. I was really interested to know the
responses of people to my questions. And I was really pleased to find out that the results
that I gathered almost confirmed all the information I gathered earlier in my research (all
the results are discussed in details in the paper).
Conducting the interview with my fitness trainer was also an enjoyable part in my
research. I almost see him every day in my training but I never got to ask him and talk
with him about the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes. So I
Youssef18
finally got the chance to have such a talk with him. Even though he also confirmed most
of the information I mentioned earlier, he still provided me with information I did not
know of before, which is added to my results and discussion section in my paper.
I never though that I will enjoy working on this paper this much. Especially that I
chose a topic that I find really interesting and strongly related to my life and me. After the
first conference and the peer review I got to change some of the mistakes that have been
in the paper in the introduction, literature review, and the methodology section. I was not
done yet with the results and discussion section so I think I need to have another
conference with the professor to fix any mistakes there. I am also not done with the
conclusion yet, but I have a sense after all this research and survey results about what the
conclusion is going to be like. I am also going to add two recommendations to everyone
reading my research paper.
I was very nervous about the presentation. But I practiced several times about what I am
going to say in the presentation in order not to mess up in front of the class. I taught of
adding few videos to make the presentation more interesting. I cannot say that I easily
found related videos, but I was able to find two vides. One video talked about how
disabled people feel when they become athletes and the other one talked the later and
more dangerous consequences of being stressed. I was finally able to get over with the
presentation without feeling very nervous like I thought I would be. Finally, I just have
few things to add to my paper and I will be done isA
Youssef19
Annotated Bibliography Draft
June 20, 2012
Annotated Bibliography
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In Matthew’s dissertation/thesis, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include attitudes, behaviors, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of this research are that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes, and that there is a relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it is higher in athletes. Athletes feel that they are more unique than others in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Athletes are also more likely than non-athletes to have strong motivational drives for self-development and academic achievement because they are usually having a goal in mind that they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic field, which implies lately in most aspects of their life other than in their athletic field.
I found that the sociological and the psychological differences that Matthew discussed are very relevant to my topic as they describe how those aspects differ between athletes and non-athletes. However, the thesis focused mainly on the positive points of being an athlete.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
The article mentioned different information about the stress and anxiety related to athletes. Fullerton says that there are many disorders that are related to stress and anxiety like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them.
Youssef20
I found the information in this source different than the other sources because in most sources they just state that being professional athletes may cause stress and anxiety due to different reasons. But in this source the information are little more detailed about the related disorders and the athletes’ disability to handle them.
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
This is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and mental health, especially their ability to cope with stress. This study was focusing mainly on recreational athletes who participate in regular exercise. The results of the study show that athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The results also show that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better mental health profile than non-athletes that influences resiliency.
The article is not very detailed. It provided me with useful information regarding the recreational athletes’ mental health and their ability to recover, but it is not comprehensive.
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It is an important question that is asked by Krumer, Shavit and Rosenboim in their study. The aim of their study is to compare time preferences and subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The study shows that professional athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
I found the information provided in this source relevant to my topic and useful as it shows how the mind of athletes psychologically differs from the mind of non-athletes
Youssef21
regarding time preferences. It also shows me how they have different perspectives about the present and the future based on whether they are engaged in sports or not.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin talks in his article about how sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. Individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life.
I feel that I need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research. The article is very useful as it describes how the psychology of disabled individuals differs when becoming athletes and how they perceive themselves.
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In this study by Michele, she talks about how sports and physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was done on students and it shows that students who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or physical exercise.
Although the study did not mention directly that they are talking about students who are recreational athletes and not professional athletes, but it was easy to figure out because other sources show different results regarding professional and competitive athletes.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef22
The authors discuss in their article how athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance, cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience.
It was useful to know that athletes have different reasons to tolerate and endure pain other than their strength of their bodies. The psychological techniques they use to tolerate the pain of their injuries are also a great evidence of how sports affect the psychology of athletes.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
There is a difference when talking about stress regarding non-professional athletes and professional athletes. In this article about Sport Behavior, the study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and professional athletes to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate and professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than recreational and non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray, 1997).
I found this article helpful as it focused on the intercollegiate and the professional athletes. The study talked about the negative side effects of the sports on competitive athletes which are going to help me in the research.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
In this book, the authors discussed the positive relation between the moderate exercise that is performed daily and mental health. Exercise is associated with the reduction of
Youssef23
depression and anxiety as well as the improvement of one’s self-esteem, body image, and socialization, which all add up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning. However all this differs between athletes and non-athletes depending on their own level of involvement in sport or exercise from that of a non-athletes to that of a professional or a competitive athlete. Regarding the competitive and the professional athletes it is different. They seem to be at a higher risk with psychological disorders that normal athletes and non-athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to develop personality disorders.
Since there is a huge difference between the psychology of recreational and professional athletes, I found the information in this book really helpful because it made it clear when differentiating between them and discussing the positive and negative side effects of sports on peoples’ psychology.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
There are many ways people can respond to their injuries, and those ways differ from an athlete to a non-athlete. This article talks about the different psychological ways athletes respond to their injuries to assist rehabilitation. Those responses include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes not only because of the well being of their body and its strength, but because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain.
This article is related to my topic as it shows how sports injuries affect the psychology of the athletes and vice versa.
Youssef24
Draft 1
I-Search Research Paper Draft 1
June 27, 2012
Introduction:
Physical activity is becoming an essential part of many peoples’ lives around the world. Exercise is acknowledged as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. When talking about a healthy life style, people tend to concentrate on the benefits of exercise on the person’s physical health, but not on the mental health.
I have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing squash until I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I have experienced being a recreational athlete for a while and being a competitive athlete for another few years in my life. During all those years I have realized that there are some differences in many things between the athletes and the non-athletes. I have been experiencing, until now, that me and my athletic friends have different mental profiles than our non athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the psychological differences between us. I want to know more about how sports affects the way in which athletes minds work and how being an athlete affect their mind’s view of many different things leading to differences in interacting with the world around them. All of this pushed me toward choosing my topic, which is sport and exercise psychology. After searching for a while about this topic, I narrowed my search into one question to help me to be more specific about the information I want to gather.
Finally I chose the I-Search research paper question to be: what are the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes? The psychological differences that I am mainly addressing in this research include attitudes, stress, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, mood changes, time preferences, injury pain toleration and how they are all related to sports. And I started my journey toward finding answers to my question.
Literature review:
In order to know about the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes, I started by searching in the American University in Cairo library database. It is where I found most of the sources related to my topic. I found a lot of interesting information about sports psychology and how sports affect the person’s psychology and vice versa. This encouraged me to focus more on the athlete’s psychology when addressing the differences. I am still going to compare between both of them since it is the question of my research, but at the same time I am going to focus a lot on sports psychology and how the athlete’s psychological behavior is affected by sports.
Michele in her study talks about how sports and physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression symptoms as
Youssef25
well as increasing one’s self-esteem. She shows that students who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or physical exercise. They feel that they are more unique than others in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem .All this adds up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning leading to a better mental health profile (Van, Brewer, Khodabakhshi)
However, there is a difference when talking about stress regarding recreational athletes and competitive athletes. When studying sport behavior, I realized the differences in the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and competitive athletes to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. They seem to be at a higher risk with psychopathology and psychological disorders that recreational and non-athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to develop personality disorders (Van, Brewer, Storch, Parisili). “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray)
The problem with the increase in stress and anxiety regarding competitive athletes is that there are many disorders that are related to them like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them (Fullerton).
I felt the need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research since that sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. I found that individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life (Martin).
Youssef26
While searching to know the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes, I found that there is variation in the responses to injury pain between athletes and non-athletes. Athletes seem to endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control (sharma). The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance, cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience. Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes also because of the well being of their body and its strength. Another reason is that because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are still more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain(Walker, Thatcher, Lavallee).
Another thing I learned about the psychology of athletes and non-athletes is that they have different time preferences. Competitive athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
Methodology:
I did not know at the beginning what questions to write in my questionnaire to ask people in order to compare their answers with the information I found. I then decided to structure my questions to ask people mainly about what they feel regarding participating in sports and how participating or not participating in sports affect few aspects in their life. I found that the answers to those questions would let me know about the psychology of competitive athletes, recreational athletes, and non-athletes.
I distributed the survey electronically through face book and emails, and physically by distributing them in my training. The surveys that I distributed physically were mostly targeting competitive athletes because I distributed them among my colleagues who practice with me in my squash training. The surveys that I distributed electronically were mainly targeting my recreational athlete friends and non-athletes. By this way, I expect to get a good range between competitive, recreational, and non-athletes, which will help me to answer my research question. Although I still expect the range of competitive and recreational athletes to be greater than the number of non-athletes answering my questionnaire because most of my friends and family members are athletes.
Youssef27
Other than the survey, I was able to conduct an interview with a fitness trainer who dealt with many competitive and recreational athletes. I asked him to talk to me about the athletes’ behavior and how participating in sports affect the psychology of athletes in order to be able to compare it with non-athletes psychology. I found the information that he provided me very helpful and related to my topic. I even think that the information that I am going to provide based on the interview would be more informative than the information that I am going to provide based on the survey answers.
Results:
When I reached 100+ responses to my survey, I started dividing the responses based on the criteria of whether the respondent is a competitive, recreational or non-athlete. This division is going to help me with gathering the different responses because as I mentioned earlier, the psychology of competitive athletes differs from recreational and non-athletes.
Based on the responses I gathered from competitive athletes, 70% feel that they are in a good mood after a workout or training, 27% feel that they are in a neutral state of mind, and only 3% responded that they feel that they are in a bad mood. Regarding stress and anxiety, 75% of competitive athletes stated that participating in sports increases their stress and anxiety, and the other 25% stated that it decreases their stress and anxiety. 68% of the competitive athletes did not face any psychological disorder due to sports and the other 32% stated that they have faced psychological disorders.
Based on the recreational athletes responses, 75% feel that they are in a good mood after a workout or training, 5% feel that they are in a neutral state of mind, and 0% was the total number of recreational athletes who felt in a bad mood. Concerning stress and anxiety, 97% mentioned that participating in sports decreases their stress and anxiety and 3% mentioned that it increases stress and anxiety.
60% competitive athletes
35% recreational athletes
5% non-athletes
Their mood after a workout/training
70% in a good mood 27% okay 3% in a bad mood
75% in a good mood 5% okay 0% in a bad mood
38% in a good mood 60% okay 2% in a bad mood
Participating in sports
75% increases stress/anxiety
25% decreases stress/anxiety
3% increases stress/anxiety
97% decreases stress/anxiety
22% no answer 78% decreases stress/anxiety
Are they able to manage their time?
88% yes 12% no
84% yes 16% no
63% yes 37% no
Did they face any psychological disorder?
32% yes 68% no
8% yes 92% no
0% yes 100% no
Are they proud of participating in sport?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
Youssef28
Do they think athletes tolerate pain better that non-athletes?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
Youssef29
Draft 2
I-Search Research Paper Draft 2
July 1, 2012
Introduction:
Physical activity is becoming an essential part of many peoples’ lives around the
world. Exercise is acknowledged as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. When talking
about a healthy life style, people tend to concentrate on the benefits of exercise on the
person’s physical health, but not on the mental health.
I have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing
squash until I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I
have experienced being a recreational athlete for a while and being a competitive athlete
for another few years in my life. During those years I realized that there are some
differences in many things between the athletes and the non-athletes. I have been
experiencing, until now, that my athletic friends and I have different mental profiles than
our non athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the psychological
differences between us. I want to know more about how sports affects the way in which
athletes minds work and how being an athlete affect their mind’s view of many different
things leading to differences in interacting with the world around them. All of this pushed
me toward choosing my topic, which is sport and exercise psychology. After searching
for a while about this topic, I narrowed my search into one question to help me to be
more specific about the information I want to gather.
Youssef30
My main question is: what are the psychological differences between athletes and
non-athletes? The psychological differences that I am mainly addressing in this research
include attitudes, stress, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, mood changes, time
preferences, injury pain toleration and how they are all related to sports. I then started my
journey toward finding answers to my question.
Literature review:
In order to know about the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I started by searching in the American University in Cairo library database. It is
where I found most of the sources related to my topic. I found a lot of interesting
information about sports psychology and how sports affect the person’s psychology and
vice versa. This encouraged me to focus more on the athlete’s psychology when
addressing the differences. I am still going to compare between both of them since it is
the question of my research, but at the same time I am going to focus a lot on sports
psychology and how the athlete’s psychological behavior is affected by sports.
Michele Parisi in her study entitled "The Relationship between Stress and Self-
Esteem in Student Athletes Versus Non-Athletes", talks about how sports and physical
activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression
symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. She shows that students who
participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to
experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also
experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any
sports or physical exercise. They feel that they are more unique than others in a good
Youssef31
thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the
main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Others like Van Raalte, Brewer, and
Khodabakhshi concluded similarly that all this adds up to improvements in mental and
emotional functioning leading to a better mental health profile.
However, there is a difference when talking about stress regarding recreational
athletes and competitive athletes. When studying sport behavior, I realized the
differences in the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and competitive athletes
to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect
the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with
college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports
would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason
behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or
stressful sport experience. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as
well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. They seem to be at a higher
risk with psychopathology and psychological disorders that recreational and non-athletes.
Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders,
inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more.
Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a
pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance
followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also
cause their participants to develop personality disorders (Van Raalte, Brewer, Storch,
Parisili). M. A. Murray stated, “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling
Youssef32
regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and
performance related issues” (qtd. in Stroch)
The problem with the increase in stress and anxiety regarding competitive athletes
is that there are many disorders that are related to them like obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as
ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more
serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or
stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them (Fullerton).
I felt the need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research
since that sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able
bodied. I found that individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being
neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of
determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-
esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting
involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal
development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life
(Martin).
While searching to know the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I found that there is variation in the responses to injury pain between athletes
and non-athletes. Athletes seem to endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than
non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control
(Sharma). The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance,
Youssef33
cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with
pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere
that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control
the pain is due to their athletic training and experience. Athletes seem to tolerate more
pain than non-athletes also because of the well being of their body and its strength.
Another reason is that because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes
and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so
athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses
that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could
increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are still more likely to tolerate and
endure those injuries’ pain(Walker, Thatcher, Lavallee).
Another thing I learned about the psychology of athletes and non-athletes is that
they have different time preferences. Competitive athletes have high time preference as
they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that
athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ
from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than
non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference
between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future.
Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in
the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present
to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
Youssef34
Methodology:
I did not know at the beginning what questions to write in my questionnaire to ask
people in order to compare their answers with the information I found. I then decided to
structure my questions to ask people mainly about what they feel regarding participating
in sports and how participating or not participating in sports affect few aspects in their
life. I found that the answers to those questions would let me know about the psychology
of competitive athletes, recreational athletes, and non-athletes.
I distributed the survey electronically through face book and emails, and
physically by distributing them in my training. The surveys that I distributed physically
were mostly targeting competitive athletes because I distributed them among my
colleagues who practice with me in my squash training. The surveys that I distributed
electronically were mainly targeting my recreational athlete friends and non-athletes. By
this way, I expect to get a good range between competitive, recreational, and non-
athletes, which will help me to answer my research question. Although I still expect the
range of competitive and recreational athletes to be greater than the number of non-
athletes answering my questionnaire because most of my friends and family members are
athletes.
Other than the survey, I was able to conduct an interview with a fitness trainer
who dealt with many competitive and recreational athletes. I asked him to talk to me
about the athletes’ behavior and how participating in sports affect the psychology of
athletes in order to be able to compare it with non-athletes psychology. I found the
information that he provided me very helpful and related to my topic. I even think that
Youssef35
the information that I am going to provide based on the interview would be more
informative than the information that I am going to provide based on the survey answers.
Results and Discussion:
When I reached 100+ responses to my survey, I started dividing the responses
based on the criteria of whether the respondent is a competitive, recreational or non-
athlete. This division is going to help me with gathering the different responses because
as I mentioned earlier, the psychology of competitive athletes differs from recreational
and non-athletes.
Here are the results of the main seven questions from the ten in my questionnaire: (to see
all the survey questions please look at Appendix A)
60% competitive
athletes
35% recreational
athletes
5% non-athletes
Their mood after a
workout/training
70% in a good mood
27% okay
3% in a bad mood
75% in a good mood
5% okay
0% in a bad mood
60% in a good mood
38% okay
2% in a bad mood
Participating in
sports
75% increases
stress/anxiety
25% decreases
stress/anxiety
3% increases
stress/anxiety
97% decreases
stress/anxiety
22% no answer
78% decreases
stress/anxiety
Are they able to 88% yes 84% yes 63% yes
Youssef36
manage their time? 12% no 16% no 37% no
Did they face any
psychological
disorder?
32% yes
68% no
8% yes
92% no
0% yes
100% no
Are they proud of
participating in
sport?
100% yes
0% no
100% yes
0% no
0% yes (no answer)
0% no (no answer)
Do they think
athletes tolerate pain
better that non-
athletes?
100% yes
0% no
100% yes
0% no
100% yes
0% no
The results of the questionnaire shown above confirm first that participating in
sports lifts the mood of participants whether they are competitive, recreational, or non-
athletes. Second, participating in sports increases stress and anxiety in competitive
athletes and decreases stress and anxiety with a remarkable rate in recreational athletes. A
percentage of non-athletes did not answer this question because they do not participate in
any physical exercise, but the ones who replied answered that sports decreases their stress
and anxiety. The percentage of competitive and recreational athletes who have the ability
to manage their time is almost similar and high. This confirms thirdly that athletes have
the ability to manage their time better than non-athletes whom percentage was lower.
Youssef37
Regarding the question about the psychological disorders related to participating
in sport, I did not reach the answers expected, however, we can fourthly deduce based on
the percentages that competitive athletes are at a higher rate of facing any psychological
disorder due to sports. All competitive and recreational athletes who answered the
questionnaire said that they are proud of participating in sports. This is an indication that
sports increase their self-esteem, as they are proud of what they are doing. All responses
also confirmed the idea that athletes tolerate pain better than non-athletes. I did not get a
chance to have an explanation from them about why they think so, but I was able to reach
an explanation from the interview I conducted.
Based on the interview I had with the professional fitness trainer and sport
psychologist, Ahmed Faragallah, I gained vey helpful information about the
psychological differences between competitive, recreational, and non-athletes. I started
by asking him to talk to me about the psychology of competitive and recreational athletes
that he trained and how sports affected their minds.
Regarding competitive athletes, he told me that participating in sports highly
increases their stress and make them face depression more because of their training
commitment and the anxiety related to winning competitions and good performances. He
added that they have the ability to manage their time perfectly. They have everything
scheduled and a timetable where they can fit in everything they want from training,
studying, sleeping, going out…etc. He also mentioned that their self-esteem is vey high
as they excel in what they are doing. The main way they get satisfaction in their lives is
by winning, which gradually increases more their self-esteem.
Youssef38
Regarding recreational athletes, he told me that he realized that participating in
sports decreases their stress and the feeling of being depressed because they get
satisfaction by doing physical exercise. Their self-esteem increases but by a slower pace
than competitive athletes and this is because their self-esteem is based on what they
achieve like loosing weight or being in a good and healthy shape.
Before training the top world ranked players, Faragallah was training mental
disabled. So I asked him to tell me how doing physical exercise affect them. He told me
that sports is one of the most things they enjoy and that once they start feeling the benefit
of training; their self-esteem increases. The benefits of sports to them is that they feel that
they are becoming important in the society by gaining people’s attention rather than
being neglected.
I asked him if he knows much about the psychology of non-athletes, and he told
me that they lose the ability of being happy because everything they do happens because
they have free time for it and not because they want to do it or enjoy doing it. He added
that this is one of main reasons why they face depression as well as having an unhealthy
and/or over weighted body.
I asked him why do athletes tolerate injury pains better than athletes? He replied
by saying that sports strengthen the muscles, bones, and mind. He elaborated on that
saying that when muscles plus the bones become strong, this leads to the mind being in a
healthy state. When the mind becomes in a healthy state, it haves the ability to give the
right orders in the right time to the body to reduce its pain and increase their pain
toleration and recovery.
Youssef39
Works Cited
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Youssef40
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef41
Annotated Bibliography
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In Matthew’s dissertation/thesis, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include attitudes, behaviors, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of this research are that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes, and that there is a relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it is higher in athletes. Athletes feel that they are more unique than others in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Athletes are also more likely than non-athletes to have strong motivational drives for self-development and academic achievement because they are usually having a goal in mind that they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic field, which implies lately in most aspects of their life other than in their athletic field.
I found that the sociological and the psychological differences that Matthew discussed are very relevant to my topic as they describe how those aspects differ between athletes and non-athletes. However, the thesis focused mainly on the positive points of being an athlete.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
The article mentioned different information about the stress and anxiety related to athletes. Fullerton says that there are many disorders that are related to stress and anxiety like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them.
I found the information in this source different than the other sources because in most sources they just state that being professional athletes may cause stress and anxiety due to different reasons. But in this source the information are little more detailed about the related disorders and the athletes’ disability to handle them.
Youssef42
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
This is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and mental health, especially their ability to cope with stress. This study was focusing mainly on recreational athletes who participate in regular exercise. The results of the study show that athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The results also show that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better mental health profile than non-athletes that influences resiliency.
The article is not very detailed. It provided me with useful information regarding the recreational athletes’ mental health and their ability to recover, but it is not comprehensive.
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It is an important question that is asked by Krumer, Shavit and Rosenboim in their study. The aim of their study is to compare time preferences and subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The study shows that professional athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
I found the information provided in this source relevant to my topic and useful as it shows how the mind of athletes psychologically differs from the mind of non-athletes regarding time preferences. It also shows me how they have different perspectives about the present and the future based on whether they are engaged in sports or not.
Youssef43
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin talks in his article about how sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. Individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life.
I feel that I need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research. The article is very useful as it describes how the psychology of disabled individuals differs when becoming athletes and how they perceive themselves.
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In this study by Michele, she talks about how sports and physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was done on students and it shows that students who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or physical exercise.
Although the study did not mention directly that they are talking about students who are recreational athletes and not professional athletes, but it was easy to figure out because other sources show different results regarding professional and competitive athletes.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef44
The authors discuss in their article how athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance, cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience.
It was useful to know that athletes have different reasons to tolerate and endure pain other than their strength of their bodies. The psychological techniques they use to tolerate the pain of their injuries are also a great evidence of how sports affect the psychology of athletes.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
There is a difference when talking about stress regarding non-professional athletes and professional athletes. In this article about Sport Behavior, the study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and professional athletes to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate and professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than recreational and non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray, 1997).
I found this article helpful as it focused on the intercollegiate and the professional athletes. The study talked about the negative side effects of the sports on competitive athletes which are going to help me in the research.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
In this book, the authors discussed the positive relation between the moderate exercise that is performed daily and mental health. Exercise is associated with the reduction of
Youssef45
depression and anxiety as well as the improvement of one’s self-esteem, body image, and socialization, which all add up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning. However all this differs between athletes and non-athletes depending on their own level of involvement in sport or exercise from that of a non-athletes to that of a professional or a competitive athlete. Regarding the competitive and the professional athletes it is different. They seem to be at a higher risk with psychological disorders that normal athletes and non-athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to develop personality disorders.
Since there is a huge difference between the psychology of recreational and professional athletes, I found the information in this book really helpful because it made it clear when differentiating between them and discussing the positive and negative side effects of sports on peoples’ psychology.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
There are many ways people can respond to their injuries, and those ways differ from an athlete to a non-athlete. This article talks about the different psychological ways athletes respond to their injuries to assist rehabilitation. Those responses include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes not only because of the well being of their body and its strength, but because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain.
This article is related to my topic as it shows how sports injuries affect the psychology of the athletes and vice versa.
Youssef46
Appendix A (questionnaire)
1. Doyoupracticesportsordoanyphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
2. Ifso,abouthowmanyhoursperweek
• Lessthan2hours
• 3‐4hours
• 5‐6hours
• Morethan6hours
3. Whatkindofsportsdoyouplay?
……….
4. Doyouconsideryourselfa
• Competitiveathlete
• Recreational/amateurathlete
• Non‐athlete
5. Howdoyoufeelafteraworkout/training?
• Inagoodmood
• Okay
• Inabadmood
• N/A
6. Participatinginsports:
• Increasesyourstress/anxiety
• Decreasesyourstress/anxiety
Youssef47
7. Areyouabletomanageyourtime?
• Yes
• No
8. Didyoueverexperienceanypsychologicaldisorderduetosports?(Ex.
Eatingdisorder,drugandalcoholusedisorder,socialanxiety,
personalitydisorder…etc)
• Yes
• No
9. Doyouthinkathletestoleratepainbetterthannonathletes?
• Yes
• No
10. Areyouproudofplayingsportsordoingphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
Youssef48
Draft 3
I-Search Research Paper Draft 3
July 7, 2012
Psychological Differences
Introduction:
Physical activity is becoming an essential part of many peoples’ lives around the
world. Exercise is acknowledged as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. When talking
about a healthy lifestyle, people tend to concentrate on the benefits of exercise on the
person’s physical health, but not on the mental health.
I have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing
squash until I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I
have experienced being a competitive athlete for a while and being a recreational athlete
(people who play sports or do physical exercise for fun) for another few years in my life.
During those years I realized that there are some differences in many things between the
athletes and the non-athletes. I have been experiencing, until now, that my athletic friends
and I have different psychological profiles (personality based on behavior) than our non
athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the psychological
differences between us. I want to know more about how sports affects the ways in which
athletes’ minds work and how being an athlete affects their minds’ view of many
different things leading to differences in interacting with the world around them. All of
this pushed me towards choosing a topic, which is Sport and Exercise Psychology. Sport
Youssef49
Psychology is a broad topic as it discusses the psychological factors that affect and get
affected by sports and physical exercise as well as providing psychological skills to help
athletes improve their performance. After searching for a while about this topic, I realized
that time available is not going to be enough to cover all the aspects of sport psychology
and so I narrowed my search into one question to help me be more specific about the
information I want to gather.
My main question is: what are the psychological differences between athletes and
non-athletes? The psychological differences that I am mainly addressing in this research
include attitudes, stress, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, mood changes, time
preferences, injury pain toleration and how they are all related to sports. I then started my
journey toward finding answers to my question.
Story of my search:
In order to know about the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I started by searching in the American University in Cairo library database. It is
where I found most of the sources related to my topic. I found a lot of interesting
information about sports psychology and how sports affect the person’s psychology and
vice versa. This encouraged me to focus more on the athlete’s psychology when
addressing the differences. I am still going to compare between both of them since it is
the question of my research, but at the same time I am going to focus more on sports
psychology and how the athlete’s psychological behavior is affected by sports.
At the beginning I thought that I am going to find only positive side effects of
sports on the psychology of athletes, however, I was surprised when I discovered the
Youssef50
negative side effects as well. This reminded me of the days when I actually experienced
those negative side effects and made me realize what I did not pay attention to earlier in
my athletic career. At this point of my research is when I decided to separate some of the
information I am gathering based on the criteria of whether they are about competitive,
recreational, or non-athletes since it greatly differs in a few psychological situations. This
made me more excited about the topic and worked as a motivation toward my journey of
gathering information.
Literature Review:
Michele Parisi, the author of the study entitled "The Relationship between Stress
and Self-Esteem in Student Athletes Versus Non-Athletes", talks about how sports and
physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and
depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. She shows that students
who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely
to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes.
Athletes however, also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than people who do not
participate in any sports or physical exercise. They feel more unique compared to others
in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is
one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Other writers like Van Raalte,
Brewer, and Khodabakhshi concluded similarly that all this adds up to improvements in
mental and emotional functioning leading to a better mental health profile. The reason
behind athlete experiencing low symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression as well as
improvement in emotions and mood is explained in the article “Yes, Running Can Make
You High” by Gina Kolata. The runner’s high is the good feeling that people have after
Youssef51
exercise or running. They might feel relaxed or at a peace after their exercise, and
sometimes they feel euphoric. The runner’s high hypothesis proposes that there are
biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. The chemicals released are called
endorphins, and they are responsible for the mood change of athletes. Research proves
that endorphins are produced after exercise and attach themselves to areas of the brain
involved with emotions and mood and that the more endorphins the body produces, the
greater the effect on mood. Those areas where the endorphins attach are called limbic and
prefrontal, and they are activated when “people are involved in romantic love affairs” or,
“when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano
Concerto No. 3”.
However, there is a difference between stress regarding recreational athletes and
competitive athletes. When studying sport behavior, I found there were differences in the
psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and competitive athletes to the non-athletes
and how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The
stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and
academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease
social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing
stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport
experience. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for
eating disorders and problems with alcohol. They seem to be at a higher risk with
psychopathology and psychological disorders than recreational and non-athletes. Those
psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability
to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those
Youssef52
disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such pressures
related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by
fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their
participants to develop personality disorders (Van Raalte, Brewer, Storch, Parisili).
Margaret Ann Murray, the author of the dissertation entitled “The counseling needs of
college student-athletes” stated, “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling
regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and
performance related issues” (qtd. in Stroch)
The problem with the increase in stress and anxiety regarding competitive athletes
is that there are many disorders that are related to them like obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as
ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more
serious problem that athletes face is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress
properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat those disorders (Fullerton).
I felt the need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research
since that sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able
bodied. And especially after my friend Karen told me about the disabled athletes she
watched participating in Roland Garros, the French Open tennis tournament that took
place in Paris few weeks ago. I found that individuals with disabilities usually feel
powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to
develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and
develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a
society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities
Youssef53
see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a
better quality life (Martin).
While searching to know the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I found that there is variation in the responses to injury pain between athletes
and non-athletes. Athletes seem to endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than
non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control
(Sharma). The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance,
cognitive control, social support, and activity. The results show that athletes adapt better
with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic
atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes
to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience. Athletes seem to
tolerate more pain than non-athletes also because of the well being of their body and its
strength. Coping with the injury is linked to athlete’s success and because injuries
threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career, and so they are put more in a
position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively
affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an
athlete’s stress, but they are still more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain
(Walker, Thatcher, Lavallee).
Another thing I learned about the psychology of athletes and non-athletes is that
they have different time preferences. Athletes have high time preference as they value
and focus on the present more than the future. The study entitled "Why Do Professional
Athletes Have Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" shows that athletes
consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from
Youssef54
non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-
athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference
between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future.
Athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment now but pay in the
future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and
secure themselves a better life later (Krumer, Shavit, Rosenboim).
Methodology:
I did not know at the beginning what questions to write in my questionnaire to ask
people in order to compare their answers with the information I found. I then decided to
structure my questions to ask people mainly about what they feel regarding participating
in sports and how participating or not participating in sports affect few aspects in their
life. I found that the answers to those questions would let me know about the psychology
of competitive athletes, recreational athletes, and non-athletes.
I distributed the questionnaire electronically through face book and emails, and
physically by distributing them in my training. The questionnaires that I distributed
physically were mostly targeting competitive athletes because I distributed them among
my colleagues who practice with me in my squash training. The questionnaires that I
distributed electronically were mainly targeting my recreational athlete friends and non-
athletes. By this way, I had expected to get a good range between competitive,
recreational, and non-athletes, which would help me answer my research question. I had
expected the range of competitive and recreational athletes to be greater than the number
Youssef55
of non-athletes answering my questionnaire because most of my friends and family
members are athletes.
Other than the questionnaire, I was able to conduct an interview with a fitness
trainer who is also a sport psychologist and dealt with many competitive and recreational
athletes. I asked him to talk to me about the athletes’ behavior and how participating in
sports affect the psychology of athletes in order to be able to compare it with non-
athletes’ psychology. I found the information that he provided me very helpful and
related to my topic. I firmly think that the information that I provided based on the
interview would be more informative than the information that I would have provided
based on the questionnaire answers alone.
Results and Discussion:
When I reached 100+ responses to my survey, I started dividing the responses
based on the criteria of whether the respondent is a competitive, recreational or non-
athlete (see figure 1). This division is going to help me with gathering the different
responses because as I mentioned earlier, the psychology of competitive athletes differs
from recreational and non-athletes. Here are the results of the main seven questions from
the ten in my questionnaire: (to see all the survey questions please look at Appendix A)
60% competitive athletes
35% recreational athletes
5% non-athletes
Youssef56
Their mood after a workout/training
70% in a good mood 27% okay 3% in a bad mood
75% in a good mood 5% okay 0% in a bad mood
60% in a good mood 38% okay 2% in a bad mood
Participating in sports
75% increases stress/anxiety 25% decreases stress/anxiety
3% increases stress/anxiety 97% decreases stress/anxiety
22% no answer 78% decreases stress/anxiety
Are they able to manage their time?
88% yes 12% no
84% yes 16% no
63% yes 37% no
Did they face any psychological
disorder?
32% yes 68% no
8% yes 92% no
0% yes 100% no
Are they proud of participating in
sport?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
0% yes (no answer) 0% no (no answer)
Do they think athletes tolerate pain
better that non-athletes?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
(Figure1)
The results of the questionnaire shown above confirm a few points. First,
participating in sports and doing physical exercise lift the mood of competitive,
recreational, and non-athletes. Second, competitive athletes find sports as something that
increases their stress and anxiety unlike recreational and some non-athletes who find
sports and physical exercise as something that decreases their stress and anxiety.
Regarding the question about the psychological disorders related to participating in sport,
I did not reach the answers expected, however, we can thirdly deduce based on the
percentages that competitive athletes are at a higher risk of facing any psychological
disorder due to sports. Most of respondents seem to have the ability to manage their time
and since the percentages were very close, I was not able to conclude something from this
question. All competitive and recreational athletes who answered the questionnaire said
that they are proud of participating in sports unlike non-athletes who did not answer this
question at all. This is an indication that sports increase the person’s self-esteem, as they
Youssef57
feel proud of what they are doing. All responses also confirmed the idea that athletes
tolerate pain better than non-athletes, which is right; however, I did not get a chance to
have an explanation from them about why they think so, but I was able to reach an
explanation from the interview I conducted.
Based on the interview I had with the professional fitness trainer and sport
psychologist, Ahmed Faragallah, I gained very helpful information about the
psychological differences between competitive, recreational, and non-athletes. I started
by requesting him to tell me about the psychology of competitive and recreational
athletes that he trained and how sports affected their minds. I asked him to talk about
each criterion separately and to describe to me their behavior.
With regard to competitive athletes, he told me that participating in sports highly
increases their stress and makes them face depression more because of their training
commitment and the anxiety related to winning competitions and good performances. He
added that they have the ability to manage their time perfectly. They have everything
scheduled and a timetable where they can fit in everything they want from training, to
studying, sleeping, going out…etc. He also mentioned that their self-esteem is vey high
as they excel in what they are doing. The main way they get satisfaction in their lives is
by winning, which gradually increases their self-esteem more.
As far as recreational athletes go, he told me that he realized that participating in
sports decreases their stress and the feeling of being depressed by lifting their mood
because they get satisfaction by doing physical exercise. He also mentioned to me the
chemical (endorphins) that is responsible for mood lifting that I explained earlier. He
Youssef58
added that recreational athlete’s self-esteem increases but by a slower pace compared to
competitive athletes and this is because their self-esteem is based on what they achieve
like losing weight or being in a good and healthy shape.
Before training the top world ranked players, Faragallah was training mentally
disabled children. So I asked him to tell me how physical exercise affects them. He told
me that sports is one of the most things they enjoy and that once they start feeling the
benefit of training; their self-esteem increases. The benefits they gain from playing sports
is the feeling of becoming important in the society by gaining people’s attention rather
than being neglected.
I asked him if he knows much about the psychology of non-athletes, and he told
me that they “lose the ability of being happy” because everything they do happens
because they have free time for it and not because they want to do it or enjoy doing it. He
added that this is one of main reasons why they face depression as well as having an
unhealthy and/or over weighted body.(passive active)
I asked him why do athletes tolerate injury pains better than non-athletes? He
replied by saying that sports strengthen the muscles, bones, and mind. He elaborated on
that saying that when muscles and bones become strong, this leads to the mind being in a
healthy state. When the mind becomes healthy, it has the ability to give the right orders in
the right time to the body to reduce its pain and increase athletes’ pain toleration and
recovery.
Youssef59
Conclusion:
I am glad to find out that the questionnaire and interview results confirmed almost
all the information that I provided earlier in the literature review section. As an athlete, I
find that the information I gathered is going to help me in my life. Many athletes and
non-athletes surround me and now I have the ability to understand the psychology of
recreational athletes, competitive athletes, and non-athletes.
It is now becoming obvious that sports and physical exercise affect the
psychology of recreational athletes positively and affects the psychology of competitive
athletes negatively. Finally, I would like to recommend any non-athletes to try to become
an athlete. And also any competitive athlete who is facing any psychological or
personality disorder to seek counseling from sport psychologists.
Youssef60
Works Cited
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Faragallah, Ahmed. Personal interview. 26 June 2012.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 02 July 2012.
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef61
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Thesis (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef62
Annotated Bibliography
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In Matthew’s dissertation/thesis, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include attitudes, behaviors, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of this research are that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes, and that there is a relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it is higher in athletes. Athletes feel that they are more unique than others in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Athletes are also more likely than non-athletes to have strong motivational drives for self-development and academic achievement because they are usually having a goal in mind that they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic field, which implies lately in most aspects of their life other than in their athletic field.
I found that the sociological and the psychological differences that Matthew discussed are very relevant to my topic as they describe how those aspects differ between athletes and non-athletes. However, the thesis focused mainly on the positive points of being an athlete.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
The article mentioned different information about the stress and anxiety related to athletes. Fullerton says that there are many disorders that are related to stress and anxiety like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them.
I found the information in this source different than the other sources because in most sources they just state that being professional athletes may cause stress and anxiety due to different reasons. But in this source the information are little more detailed about the related disorders and the athletes’ disability to handle them.
Youssef63
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
This is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and mental health, especially their ability to cope with stress. This study was focusing mainly on recreational athletes who participate in regular exercise. The results of the study show that athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The results also show that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better mental health profile than non-athletes that influences resiliency.
The article is not very detailed. It provided me with useful information regarding the recreational athletes’ mental health and their ability to recover, but it is not comprehensive.
Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 02 July 2012.
The runner’s high is the good feeling that people have after exercise or running. They might feel relaxed or at a peace after their exercise, and sometimes they feel euphoric. The runner’s high hypothesis proposes that there are biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. The chemicals released are called endorphins, and they are responsible for the mood change of athletes. Researches prove that endorphin is being produced after exercise and attach themselves to areas of the brain involved with emotions and mood and that the more endorphin the body produces, the greater the effect on mood. Those areas where the endorphin attaches are called limbic and prefrontal, and they are activated when “people are involved in romantic love affairs” or, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3”.
Early in my search I learned that exercise lifts the mood of athletes and that it lowers the possibility of feeling depressed. But I found this source very helpful as it provided me with the reason behind this feeling (the runner’s high).
Youssef64
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It is an important question that is asked by Krumer, Shavit and Rosenboim in their study. The aim of their study is to compare time preferences and subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The study shows that professional athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
I found the information provided in this source relevant to my topic and useful as it shows how the mind of athletes psychologically differs from the mind of non-athletes regarding time preferences. It also shows me how they have different perspectives about the present and the future based on whether they are engaged in sports or not.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin talks in his article about how sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. Individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life.
I feel that I need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research. The article is very useful as it describes how the psychology of disabled individuals differs when becoming athletes and how they perceive themselves.
Youssef65
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In this study by Michele, she talks about how sports and physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was done on students and it shows that students who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or physical exercise.
Although the study did not mention directly that they are talking about students who are recreational athletes and not professional athletes, but it was easy to figure out because other sources show different results regarding professional and competitive athletes.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
The authors discuss in their article how athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance, cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience.
It was useful to know that athletes have different reasons to tolerate and endure pain other than their strength of their bodies. The psychological techniques they use to tolerate the pain of their injuries are also a great evidence of how sports affect the psychology of athletes.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
Youssef66
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
There is a difference when talking about stress regarding non-professional athletes and professional athletes. In this article about Sport Behavior, the study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and professional athletes to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate and professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than recreational and non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray, 1997).
I found this article helpful as it focused on the intercollegiate and the professional athletes. The study talked about the negative side effects of the sports on competitive athletes which are going to help me in the research.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
In this book, the authors discussed the positive relation between the moderate exercise that is performed daily and mental health. Exercise is associated with the reduction of depression and anxiety as well as the improvement of one’s self-esteem, body image, and socialization, which all add up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning. However all this differs between athletes and non-athletes depending on their own level of involvement in sport or exercise from that of a non-athletes to that of a professional or a competitive athlete. Regarding the competitive and the professional athletes it is different. They seem to be at a higher risk with psychological disorders that normal athletes and non-athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to develop personality disorders.
Since there is a huge difference between the psychology of recreational and professional athletes, I found the information in this book really helpful because it made it clear when
Youssef67
differentiating between them and discussing the positive and negative side effects of sports on peoples’ psychology.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
There are many ways people can respond to their injuries, and those ways differ from an athlete to a non-athlete. This article talks about the different psychological ways athletes respond to their injuries to assist rehabilitation. Those responses include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes not only because of the well being of their body and its strength, but because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain.
This article is related to my topic as it shows how sports injuries affect the psychology of the athletes and vice versa.
Youssef68
Appendix A (questionnaire)
11. Doyoupracticesportsordoanyphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
12. Ifso,abouthowmanyhoursperweek
• Lessthan2hours
• 3‐4hours
• 5‐6hours
• Morethan6hours
13. Whatkindofsportsdoyouplay?
……….
14. Doyouconsideryourselfa
• Competitiveathlete
• Recreational/amateurathlete
• Non‐athlete
15. Howdoyoufeelafteraworkout/training?
• Inagoodmood
• Okay
• Inabadmood
• N/A
16. Participatinginsports:
• Increasesyourstress/anxiety
• Decreasesyourstress/anxiety
Youssef69
17. Areyouabletomanageyourtime?
• Yes
• No
18. Didyoueverexperienceanypsychologicaldisorderduetosports?(Ex.
Eatingdisorder,drugandalcoholusedisorder,socialanxiety,
personalitydisorder…etc)
• Yes
• No
19. Doyouthinkathletestoleratepainbetterthannonathletes?
• Yes
• No
20. Areyouproudofplayingsportsordoingphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
Youssef70
Appendix B (Interview)
• How do sports affect competitive athletes psychologically?
• How do sports affect recreational athletes psychologically?
• How are mental disabled children you trained affected by sports?
• What are the main psychological differences you realize between non-athletes and
athletes?
• Is it true that athletes tolerate pain better than non-athletes? If yes, then how?
Youssef71
Final Draft I-Search Research Paper Final draft
July 15, 2012
Psychological Differences Between Athletes and Non-Athletes
Introduction:
Physical exercise and sports are acknowledged as an important part of a healthy
lifestyle. However, when talking about a healthy lifestyle, people tend to concentrate on
the benefits of exercise on the person’s physical health, but not on the mental health. I
have always been an athlete and I have spent more that eleven years playing squash until
I became one of the top ranked squash players in Egypt and in the world. I have
experienced being a competitive athlete for a while and being a recreational athlete
(people who play sports or do physical exercise for fun) for another few years in my life.
During those years I realized that there are some differences in many things between the
athletes and the non-athletes. I have been experiencing, until now, that my athletic friends
and I have different psychological profiles (personality based on behavior) than our non
athletic friends, which raised my curiosity to know more about the psychological
differences between us. I want to know more about how sports affects the ways in which
athletes’ minds work and how being an athlete affects their minds’ view of many
different things leading to differences in interacting with the world around them.
All of this pushed me towards choosing a topic, which is Sport and Exercise
Psychology. Sport Psychology is a broad topic as it discusses the psychological factors
that affect and get affected by sports and physical exercise as well as providing
Youssef72
psychological skills to help athletes improve their performance. After searching for a
while about this topic, I realized that time available is not going to be enough to cover all
the aspects of sport psychology and so I narrowed my search into one question to help me
be more specific about the information I want to gather.
My main question is: what are the psychological differences between athletes and
non-athletes? The psychological differences that I am mainly addressing in this research
include attitudes, stress, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, mood changes, time
preferences, injury pain toleration and how they are all related to sports. I then started my
journey toward finding answers to my question.
Story of my search:
In order to know about the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I started by searching in the American University in Cairo library database. It is
where I found most of the sources related to my topic. I found a lot of interesting
information about sports psychology and how sports affect the person’s psychology and
vice versa. This encouraged me to focus more on the athlete’s psychology when
addressing the differences. I am still going to compare between both of them since it is
the question of my research, but at the same time I am going to focus more on sports
psychology and how the athlete’s psychological behavior is affected by sports.
At the beginning I thought that I am going to find only positive side effects of
sports on the psychology of athletes, however, I was surprised when I discovered that
there are negative side effects as well. This reminded me of the days when I actually
experienced those negative side effects and made me realize what I did not pay attention
Youssef73
to earlier in my athletic career. At this point of my research is when I decided to separate
some of the information I am gathering based on the criteria of whether they are about
competitive, recreational, or non-athletes since it greatly differs in a few psychological
situations. This made me more excited about the topic and worked as a motivation toward
my journey of gathering information.
Literature Review:
Michele Parisi, the author of the study entitled "The Relationship between Stress
and Self-Esteem in Student Athletes Versus Non-Athletes", talks about how sports and
physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and
depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. She shows that students
who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely
to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes.
Athletes also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than people who do not
participate in any sports or physical exercise. They feel more unique compared to others
in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is
one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Other writers like Van Raalte,
Brewer, and Khodabakhshi concluded similarly that all this adds up to improvements in
mental and emotional functioning leading to a better mental health profile. The reason
behind athlete experiencing low symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression as well as
improvement in emotions and mood is explained in the article “Yes, Running Can Make
You High” by Gina Kolata. The runner’s high is the good feeling that people have after
exercise or running. They might feel relaxed or at a peace after their exercise, and
sometimes they feel euphoric. The runner’s high hypothesis proposes that there are
Youssef74
biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. The chemicals released are called
endorphins, and they are responsible for the mood change of athletes. Research proves
that endorphins are produced after exercise and attach themselves to areas of the brain
involved with emotions and mood and that the more endorphins the body produces, the
greater the effect on mood. Those areas where the endorphins attach are called limbic and
prefrontal, and they are activated when “people are involved in romantic love affairs” or,
“when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano
Concerto No. 3”.
However, there is a difference between stress regarding recreational athletes and
competitive athletes. When studying sport behavior, I found there were differences in the
psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and competitive athletes to the non-athletes
and that being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The
stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and
academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease
social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing
stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport
experience. Competitive athletes are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as
well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. They seem to be at a higher
risk with psychopathology and psychological disorders than recreational and non-
athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use
disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many
more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such
pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance
Youssef75
followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also
cause their participants to develop personality disorders (Van Raalte, Brewer, Storch,
Parisili). Margaret Ann Murray, the author of the dissertation entitled “The counseling
needs of college student-athletes” stated, “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for
counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety,
depression, and performance related issues” (qtd. in Stroch)
The problem with the increase in stress and anxiety regarding competitive athletes
is that there are many disorders that are related to them like obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as
ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more
serious problem that athletes face is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress
properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat those disorders (Fullerton).
I felt the need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research
since that sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able
bodied. And especially after my friend Karen told me about the disabled athletes she
watched participating in Roland Garros, the French Open tennis tournament that took
place in Paris few weeks ago. I found that individuals with disabilities usually feel
powerless because of being neglected by the society, but becoming athletes enables them
to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and
develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a
society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities
see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a
better quality life (Martin).
Youssef76
While searching to know the psychological differences between athletes and non-
athletes, I found that there is variation in the responses to injury pain between athletes
and non-athletes. Athletes seem to endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than
non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control
(Sharma). The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance,
cognitive control, social support, and activity. The results show that athletes adapt better
with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic
atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes
to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience. Athletes seem to
tolerate more pain than non-athletes also because of the well being of their body and its
strength. Since coping with the injury is linked to athlete’s success and because injuries
threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career, they are put more in a position
where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them
for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s
stress, but they are still more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain(Walker,
Thatcher, Lavallee).
Another thing I learned about the psychology of athletes and non-athletes is that
they have different time preferences. There is a great difference between athletes and
non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Athletes have high
time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study
entitled "Why Do Professional Athletes Have Different Time Preferences than Non-
athletes?" shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes
work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment now but pay in the future.
Youssef77
On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure
themselves a better life later (Krumer, Shavit, Rosenboim). Athletes would also have
healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their
sport orientation.
Methodology:
I did not know at the beginning what questions to write in my questionnaire to ask
people in order to compare their answers with the information I found. I then decided to
structure my questions to ask people mainly about what they feel regarding participating
in sports and how participating or not participating in sports affect few aspects in their
life. I found that the answers to those questions would let me know about the psychology
of competitive athletes, recreational athletes, and non-athletes.
I distributed the questionnaire electronically through face book and emails, and
physically by distributing them in my training. The questionnaires that I distributed
physically were mostly targeting competitive athletes because I distributed them among
my colleagues who practice with me in my squash training. The questionnaires that I
distributed electronically were mainly targeting my recreational athlete friends and non-
athletes. By this way, I had expected to get a good range between competitive,
recreational, and non-athletes, which would help me answer my research question. I had
also predicted the range of competitive and recreational athletes to be greater than the
number of non-athletes answering my questionnaire because most of my friends and
family members are athletes.
Youssef78
Other than the questionnaire, I was able to conduct an interview with my fitness
trainer who is also a sport psychologist and dealt with many competitive and recreational
athletes. I asked him to talk to me about the athletes’ behavior and how participating in
sports affect the psychology of athletes in order to be able to compare it with non-
athletes’ psychology. I found the information that he provided me very helpful and
related to my topic. I firmly think that the information that I provided based on the
interview would be more informative than the information that I would have provided
based on the questionnaire answers alone.
Results and Discussion:
When I reached 84 responses to my survey, I started dividing the responses based
on the criteria of whether the respondent is a competitive, recreational or non-athlete (see
figure 1). This division is going to help me with gathering the different responses because
as I mentioned earlier, the psychology of competitive athletes differs from recreational
and non-athletes. Here are the results of the main seven questions from the ten in my
questionnaire: (to see all the survey questions please look at Appendix A)
Youssef79
60% competitive athletes
35% recreational athletes
5% non-athletes
Their mood after a workout/training
70% in a good mood 27% okay 3% in a bad mood
75% in a good mood 5% okay 0% in a bad mood
60% in a good mood 38% okay 2% in a bad mood
Participating in sports
75% increases stress/anxiety 25% decreases stress/anxiety
3% increases stress/anxiety 97% decreases stress/anxiety
22% no answer 78% decreases stress/anxiety
Are they able to manage their time?
88% yes 12% no
84% yes 16% no
63% yes 37% no
Did they face any psychological
disorder?
32% yes 68% no
8% yes 92% no
0% yes 100% no
Are they proud of participating in
sport?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
0% yes (no answer) 0% no (no answer)
Do they think athletes tolerate pain
better that non-athletes?
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
100% yes 0% no
(Figure 1)
The results of the questionnaire shown above confirm a few points. First,
participating in sports and doing physical exercise lift the mood of competitive,
recreational, and non-athletes. Second, competitive athletes find sports as something that
increases their stress and anxiety unlike recreational and some non-athletes who find
sports and physical exercise as something that decreases their stress and anxiety.
Regarding the question about the psychological disorders related to participating in sport,
I did not reach the answers expected, however, we can thirdly deduce based on the
percentages that competitive athletes are at a higher risk of facing any psychological
disorder due to sports. Most of respondents seem to have the ability to manage their time
and since the percentages were very close, I was not able to conclude something from this
question. All competitive and recreational athletes who answered the questionnaire said
that they are proud of participating in sports unlike non-athletes who did not answer this
Youssef80
question at all. This is an indication that sports increase the person’s self-esteem, as they
feel proud of what they are doing. All responses also confirmed the idea that athletes
tolerate pain better than non-athletes, which is right; however, I did not get a chance to
have an explanation from them about why they think so, but I was able to reach an
explanation about this point from the interview I conducted.
Based on the interview I had with the professional fitness trainer and sport
psychologist, Ahmed Faragallah, I gained very helpful information about the
psychological differences between competitive, recreational, and non-athletes. I started
by requesting him to tell me about the psychology of competitive and recreational
athletes that he trained and how sports affected their minds. I asked him to talk about
each criterion separately and to describe to me their behavior.
Regarding competitive athletes, he told me that participating in sports highly
increases their stress and makes them face depression more because of their training
commitment and the anxiety related to winning competitions and good performances. He
added that they have the ability to manage their time perfectly. They have everything
scheduled and a timetable where they can fit in everything they want from training, to
studying, sleeping, going out…etc. He also mentioned that their self-esteem is vey high
as they excel in what they are doing. And the main way they get satisfaction in their lives
is by winning, which gradually increases their self-esteem more.
As far as recreational athletes go, he told me that he realized that participating in
sports decreases their stress and the feeling of being depressed by lifting their mood
because they get satisfaction by doing physical exercise. He also mentioned to me the
Youssef81
chemical (endorphins) that is responsible for mood lifting that I explained earlier. He
added that recreational athlete’s self-esteem increases but by a slower pace compared to
competitive athletes and this is because their self-esteem is based on what they achieve
from their physical exercise like losing weight or being in a good and healthy shape.
Before training the top world ranked players, Faragallah was training mentally
disabled children. So I asked him to tell me how physical exercise affects them. He told
me that sports is one of the most things they enjoy and that once they start feeling the
benefit of training; their self-esteem increases. The benefits they gain from playing sports
is the feeling of becoming important in the society by gaining people’s attention rather
than being neglected.
Since I was not able to get an answer about athletes’ pain toleration from the
questionnaire respondents, I asked him why do athletes tolerate injury pains better than
non-athletes? He replied by saying that sports strengthen the muscles, bones, and mind.
He elaborated on that saying that when muscles and bones become strong, this leads to
the mind being in a healthy state. And when the mind becomes healthy, it has the ability
to give the right orders in the right time to the body to reduce its pain and increase
athletes’ pain toleration and recovery.
Conclusion:
I am glad to find out that the questionnaire and interview results confirmed the
information that I provided earlier in the literature review section. We can deduce that
athletes are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression
than non-athletes as well as high feeling of self-esteem. We can also deduce that
Youssef82
competitive athletes are at a higher risk than recreational and non-athletes to face
psychological and personality disorders. As an athlete, I believe that the information I
gathered is going to help me in my life. Many athletes and non-athletes surround me and
now I have the ability to understand the psychology of recreational athletes, competitive
athletes, and non-athletes, and how it affects their life and behavior.
It is now becoming obvious that sports and physical exercise affect the
psychology of recreational athletes positively and affects the psychology of competitive
athletes negatively. Finally, I would like to recommend any non-athletes to try to become
an athlete. And also any competitive athlete who is facing any psychological or
personality disorder to seek counseling from sport psychologists.
Youssef83
Works Cited
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Faragallah, Ahmed. Personal interview. 26 June 2012.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 02 July 2012.
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef84
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Thesis (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Youssef85
Annotated Bibliography
Best, Clayton Matthew. "The Athletic Environment of the High School: A Description
of Socio-Psychological Differences between Male Athletes and Non-Athletes."
University of Maryland College Park, 1982. United States -- Maryland:
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In Matthew’s dissertation/thesis, he describes the sociological and the psychological differences between athletes and non-athletes. Those differences include attitudes, behaviors, motivational drives and social values. Some of the results of this research are that athletes value more physical development than non-athletes, and that there is a relation between athletic participation and self-esteem where it is higher in athletes. Athletes feel that they are more unique than others in a good thing by participating in a sport, especially if they excel in that sport, which is one of the main reasons for increasing self-esteem. Athletes are also more likely than non-athletes to have strong motivational drives for self-development and academic achievement because they are usually having a goal in mind that they work hard for in order to achieve in their athletic field, which implies lately in most aspects of their life other than in their athletic field.
I found that the sociological and the psychological differences that Matthew discussed are very relevant to my topic as they describe how those aspects differ between athletes and non-athletes. However, the thesis focused mainly on the positive points of being an athlete.
Fullerton, Carly M. "Stress and Anxiety in Athletics." The Sport Digest. United States
Sports Academy, n.d. Web. 17 June 2012.
The article mentioned different information about the stress and anxiety related to athletes. Fullerton says that there are many disorders that are related to stress and anxiety like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diabetes, skin disorders such as ulcers and respiratory conditions, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. The more serious problem that faces the athletes is that many of them do not handle anxiety or stress properly, nor do they know how to manage or treat them.
I found the information in this source different than the other sources because in most sources they just state that being professional athletes may cause stress and anxiety due to different reasons. But in this source the information are little more detailed about the related disorders and the athletes’ disability to handle them.
Youssef86
Khodabakhshi, A., and M. R. Khodaee. "The Comparison between Resiliency and Mental
Health among Athlete and Non-athlete Male Students." European Psychiatry 26
(2011): 3-418. Science Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
This is a study that compares athletes and non-athletes resiliency and mental health, especially their ability to cope with stress. This study was focusing mainly on recreational athletes who participate in regular exercise. The results of the study show that athletes are more likely to cope with stress and solving problems. The results also show that athletes who participate routinely in exercise have better mental health profile than non-athletes that influences resiliency.
The article is not very detailed. It provided me with useful information regarding the recreational athletes’ mental health and their ability to recover, but it is not comprehensive.
Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 02 July 2012.
The runner’s high is the good feeling that people have after exercise or running. They might feel relaxed or at a peace after their exercise, and sometimes they feel euphoric. The runner’s high hypothesis proposes that there are biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. The chemicals released are called endorphins, and they are responsible for the mood change of athletes. Research proves that endorphins are being produced after exercise and attach themselves to areas of the brain involved with emotions and mood and that the more endorphins the body produces, the greater the effect on mood. Those areas where the endorphins attach are called limbic and prefrontal, and they are activated when “people are involved in romantic love affairs” or, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3”.
Early in my search I learned that exercise lifts the mood of athletes and that it lowers the possibility of feeling depressed. But I found this source very helpful as it provided me with the reason behind this feeling (the runner’s high).
Youssef87
Krumer, Alex, Tal Shavit, and Mosi Rosenboim. "Why Do Professional Athletes Have
Different Time Preferences than Non-athletes?" Judgment and Decision Making
6.6 (2011): 542-51. Society For Judgment and Dicision Making. School of Arts
and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes? It is an important question that is asked by Krumer, Shavit and Rosenboim in their study. The aim of their study is to compare time preferences and subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. The study shows that professional athletes have high time preference as they value and focus on the present more than the future. The study also shows that athletes consume in the present more than in the future. Athletes’ time preferences differ from non-athletes. Athletes would have healthier priorities to spend their time on than non-athletes, but it is mainly based on their sport orientation. There is a great difference between athletes and non-athletes in the way they think about the present and the future. Professional athletes work hard in the present to gain the fruit of their investment also in the present but pay in the future. On the other hand, non-athletes work hard in the present to gain in the future and secure themselves a better life later.
I found the information provided in this source relevant to my topic and useful as it shows how the mind of athletes psychologically differs from the mind of non-athletes regarding time preferences. It also shows me how they have different perspectives about the present and the future based on whether they are engaged in sports or not.
Martin, Jeffrey J. "A Personal Development Model of Sport Psychology for Athletes with
Disabilities." Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 11.2 (1999): 181-93. Science
Direct. SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
Martin talks in his article about how sports affect the psychology of the disables like the way it affects the able bodied. Individuals with disabilities usually feel powerless because of being neglected by the society, but being athletes enables them to develop a sense of determination and awareness of their strengths. It also increases and develops their self-esteem and self-determination and confidence by participating in a society, getting involved in a sport and becoming athletes. When athletes with disabilities see personal development and have a sense of belonging in the society; they enjoy a better quality life.
I feel that I need to consider talking about disabled athletes as well in my research. The article is very useful as it describes how the psychology of disabled individuals differs when becoming athletes and how they perceive themselves.
Youssef88
Parisi, Michele. "The Relationship between Stress and Self-Esteem in Student
Athletes Versus Non-Athletes." Kean University, 2011. United States -- New
Jersey: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 June 2012.
In this study by Michele, she talks about how sports and physical activity play a significant role in a person’s life to reduce stress, anxiety and depression symptoms as well as increasing one’s self-esteem. The study was done on students and it shows that students who participate in sports and are involved in consistently physical activity are more likely to experience lower symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression than non-athletes. They also experience a higher feeling of self-esteem than students who do not participate in any sports or physical exercise.
Although the study did not mention directly that they are talking about students who are recreational athletes and not professional athletes, but it was easy to figure out because other sources show different results regarding professional and competitive athletes.
Sharma, Parul. "Variation in the Response to Pain Between Athletes and Non-Athletes."
Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences 3.5 (2011): 165-71. Simon
Fraser University. 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
The authors discuss in their article how athletes endure more pain and have higher pain tolerance than non-athletes due to the different psychological techniques they use for pain control. The different techniques that are discussed in this study include avoidance, cognitive control, social support, and activity. Results show that athletes adapt better with pain and can tolerate it more than non-athletes because of the entire athletic atmosphere that surrounds them. It is also said that the use of those techniques by athletes to control the pain is due to their athletic training and experience.
It was useful to know that athletes have different reasons to tolerate and endure pain other than their strength of their bodies. The psychological techniques they use to tolerate the pain of their injuries are also a great evidence of how sports affect the psychology of athletes.
Storch, Eric A.Storch, Jason B.Killiany, Erin M.Roberti, Jonathan W. "Self-Reported
Psychopathology In Athletes: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes
Youssef89
And Non-Athletes." Journal Of Sport Behavior 28.1 (2005): 86. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 17 June 2012.
There is a difference when talking about stress regarding non-professional athletes and professional athletes. In this article about Sport Behavior, the study compared the psychosocial maladjustment of intercollegiate and professional athletes to the non-athletes and talked about how being extremely involved in a sport would affect the person negatively. The stressors connected with good performance anxiety and with college attendance and academic achievement puts tension on athletes’ emotions. Sports would also decrease social interaction because of athletic commitment. Another reason behind increasing stress in professional athletes may exist because of unrewarded or stressful sport experience. The study shows that intercollegiate and professional athletes are more likely to experience psychopathology than recreational and non-athletes. They are at a greater risk of social anxiety and depression as well as risks for eating disorders and problems with alcohol. “Intercollegiate athletes report a need for counseling regarding time management, stress, burnout, fear of failure, anxiety, depression, and performance related issues” (Murray, 1997).
I found this article helpful as it focused on the intercollegiate and the professional athletes. The study talked about the negative side effects of the sports on competitive athletes which are going to help me in the research.
Van, Raalte, Judy L., and Britton W. Brewer. Exploring Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996. Print.
In this book, the authors discussed the positive relation between the moderate exercise that is performed daily and mental health. Exercise is associated with the reduction of depression and anxiety as well as the improvement of one’s self-esteem, body image, and socialization, which all add up to improvements in mental and emotional functioning. However all this differs between athletes and non-athletes depending on their own level of involvement in sport or exercise from that of a non-athletes to that of a professional or a competitive athlete. Regarding the competitive and the professional athletes it is different. They seem to be at a higher risk with psychological disorders that normal athletes and non-athletes. Those psychological disorders include eating disorders, alcohol and drug use disorders, inability to manage stress, problems of adjustment to injury, anxiety and many more. Those disorders are mainly caused by elements that are exceptional to sport such a pressures related to training and competition and the expectation of great performance followed by fear of being withdrawn from a competition. Competitive sport may also cause their participants to develop personality disorders.
Since there is a huge difference between the psychology of recreational and professional athletes, I found the information in this book really helpful because it made it clear when
Youssef90
differentiating between them and discussing the positive and negative side effects of sports on peoples’ psychology.
Walker, Natalie, Joanne Thatcher, and David Lavallee. "Review: Psychological
Responses to Injury in Competitive Sport: A Critical Review." The Journal of the
Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 127.4 (2007): 174-80. Science Direct.
SciVerse, 4 May 2011. Web. 11 June 2012.
There are many ways people can respond to their injuries, and those ways differ from an athlete to a non-athlete. This article talks about the different psychological ways athletes respond to their injuries to assist rehabilitation. Those responses include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Athletes seem to tolerate more pain than non-athletes not only because of the well being of their body and its strength, but because coping with the injury is linked to their success as athletes and because injuries threatens the athletes’ well being and his/her sports career. And so athletes are put more in a position where they have to choose psychological responses that will not negatively affect them for the sake of their sport. Being in this position could increase the level of an athlete’s stress, but they are more likely to tolerate and endure those injuries’ pain.
This article is related to my topic as it shows how sports injuries affect the psychology of the athletes and vice versa.
Youssef91
Appendix A (questionnaire)
21. Doyoupracticesportsordoanyphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
22. Ifso,abouthowmanyhoursperweek
• Lessthan2hours
• 3‐4hours
• 5‐6hours
• Morethan6hours
23. Whatkindofsportsdoyouplay?
……….
24. Doyouconsideryourselfa
• Competitiveathlete
• Recreational/amateurathlete
• Non‐athlete
25. Howdoyoufeelafteraworkout/training?
• Inagoodmood
• Okay
• Inabadmood
• N/A
26. Participatinginsports:
• Increasesyourstress/anxiety
• Decreasesyourstress/anxiety
Youssef92
27. Areyouabletomanageyourtime?
• Yes
• No
28. Didyoueverexperienceanypsychologicaldisorderduetosports?(Ex.
Eatingdisorder,drugandalcoholusedisorder,socialanxiety,
personalitydisorder…etc)
• Yes
• No
29. Doyouthinkathletestoleratepainbetterthannonathletes?
• Yes
• No
30. Areyouproudofplayingsportsordoingphysicalexercise?
• Yes
• No
Youssef93
Appendix B (Interview)
• How do sports affect competitive athletes psychologically?
• How do sports affect recreational athletes psychologically?
• How are mental disabled children you trained affected by sports?
• Is it true that athletes tolerate pain better than non-athletes? If yes, then how?
top related