The Filipino Athlete's Experience of the Bahala Na Attitude in International Sporting Competition
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Authors
Casuga, Sheryll Magante
Issue Date
2011
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
"bahala na","Filipino athletes","Filipino psychology","cultural sport psychology","coping strategy”,“Philippine sports"
Alternative Title
Abstract
This is a qualitative study of Filipino athletes' experience of the bahala na attitude in international sporting competitions. Bahala na translates literally as "leave it up to God" and is used as an expression almost universally in Filipino culture. Filipinos engage in the bahala na attitude when faced with challenging situations. Eleven Filipino athletes in an international sporting competition participated in a semi-structured interview, and conventional qualitative content analysis was utilized to analyze the data. The study found that Filipino athletes experienced and used the bahala na attitude in sports and other contexts. The common themes that emerged among the participants' description of their bahala na experience were: Bahala na as adaptive attitudinal coping with significant challenges, performance pressure as prompting context for bahala na, bahala na as an automatic response to routine stress, bahala na as problematic effort reduction, use of bahala na as a source of performance learning, and preparation obviating need for bahala na. The discussion concentrated on the bahala na attitude as a culture-influenced coping strategy for performance anxiety and to manage expectations and situational demands in sports and similar contexts. Clinical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.