DOES EMOTION REGULATION PREDICT IMAGERY ABILITY IN ATHLETES?: COMPARISONS ACROSS GENDER AND OPEN VS. CLOSED SPORTS
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Authors
Atak, Ziba
Issue Date
2019
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The following study examined the relationship between emotion regulation and imagery ability in athletes. Specifically, it examined if individual differences in emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal, suppression of emotions) could predict the ease of imagery ability in males and females whose primary sport was either open-skilled or closed-skilled. Anuar and colleagues (2017) have previously shown a positive relationship between reappraisal and ease of imagery but did not find a (predicted) negative relationship between suppression and imagery ability. Two hundred sixty three individuals participated in an online survey which included a demographic survey of age, gender, primary sport (years of experience, hours spent weekly) and sport-relevant details, as well as the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (for athletes: Uphill, Lane, & Jones, 2012), and the Sport Imagery Ability Questionnaire (Williams & Cumming, 2011). On average, men showed slightly higher ease of imagery ability than women, as revealed by a MANOVA, with a trend showing imagery ability to be higher for open-skilled than closed-skilled athletes. Reappraisal positively predicted imagery abilities, whereas suppression did not, showing a non-significant negative correlation. There seems to be a gender difference in suppression, with females showing a small but significant correlation between suppression and some types of imagery (goal, affect), and with men showing no correlation between suppression and imagery ability. Similarly, the differences found between open and closed skilled sports may be attributable to ceiling effects. Although these results regarding emotion regulation and imagery were obtained for a variety of athletes, it seems possible that the main results may generalize to all people.