More than an athlete? Athletic Identity Foreclosure & Emotional Distress In College Sports

By: Griffin Hernalsteen

Introduction

• Sports often become central to an athlete’s identity, providing structure, discipline, and mentorship. Shaping personality and social development (U’ren et al., 2017).

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• Often this can limit an individual’s exploration of other roles or identities influencing routines and long-term decisions.

Athletic Identity Foreclosure

• Degree to which an individual identifies themselves as being an athlete (Oldham et al., 2022).

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• Built over years of training and commitment reinforced by parents, teammates, competitors, and coaches (U’ren et al., 2017).

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• Which at some points can enhance performance and motivation but for some may become overly exclusive to the role and potentially harmful to performance.

Emotional Distress

• Characterized by symptoms of anxiety, depression, burnout, and identity disruption (U’ren et al., 2017).

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• Can often be triggered by injury, performance setbacks or decline, as well as career uncertainty.

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• More common in athletes with more exclusive identities towards their individual sport.

Problem Statement

• Over identifying with athletics can limit identity development, individuals may start to neglect academic, career, or social roles.
• Along with developing difficulties coping with injury, academic pressure, coaching pressure, and career uncertainty (Renton et al., 2021; Nyland & Pyle, 2022).
• Which can lead to emotional as well as psychological challenges.

Hypotheses

• It was anticipated that if an individual has higher Athletic Identity Foreclosure, then they will have higher levels of Emotional Distress.

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• Expected positive correlation between both Athletic Identity Foreclosure and Emotional Distress.

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• Predicted experiencing higher symptoms of Emotional Distress effects in current Athletes.

Methods-Participants

• 29 Athletes Participated in the present study.
• 20 male (68%)
• 9 Female (32%)

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• All participants were over the age of 18
• 19 Currently Playing (65%)
• 10 Played in High School (34%)

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Methods-Measurements

• Demographic questionnaire to discern Age, Playing status, and Gender.
• Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS), measuring the strength of the participants Athletic Identity (Lochbaum et al., 2022).
• Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), to measure Emotional Distress symptoms participants may be feeling over the past 7 days (Derogatis et al., 1975).

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All data was collected on Google Forms

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Methods-Design

• Cross-sectional correlational design
• Observational (No variable manipulation)
• Self report survey methodology

Variables:

• (IV)- Athletic Identity
• (DV)- Emotional Distress

Methods-Statistical Testing

Independent samples t-test

• Compared differences in Gender. Variables used for testing were gender and Emotional Distress.

One way ANOVA

• Compared playing status groups

Pearson’s Correlation (r)

• Analyzed the relationship between Athletic Identity & Emotional Distress

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All analyses were conducted using StatsCloud

Results-Athletic Identity

Gender (Figure 1)

• No statistical differences amongst gender though Males did score slightly higher.
• t(10.74)= 1.79, p<0.05

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Playing Status (Figure 2)

• There was a significant difference across playing status with current athletes scoring higher than those who played in High School.
• F(1,27)= 7.16, p<0.05

Interpretation:

Suggesting that active participation may strengthen Athletic Identity.

Figure 1. Athletic Identity & Gender.

Figure 2. Athletic Identity & Playing Status

Results-Emotional Distress

Gender (Figure 3)

• No significant differences amongst Gender were found.
• t(24.1)= 0.75, p<0.05

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Playing Status (Figure 4)

• There was no significant difference among those currently playing and those who played in High School though current athletes reported slightly higher distress.
• t(26.81)= 0.47, p<0.05

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Interpretation:

• Emotional Distress appears similar across all groups.

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Figure 3. Emotional Distress & Gender

Figure 4. Emotional Distress & Playing Status

Results-Correlation

Pearson correlation between Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS) totals and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) totals (Figure 5).

• r(27)= 0.15, p<0.05
• Weak relationship observed, not statistically significant.

Interpretation:

• Higher Athletic Identity may relate to higher distress.
• Results are inconclusive due to small sample size.

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Discussion

• The current study predicted a positive relationship between Athletic Identity and Emotional Distress. Though this hypothesis was not statistically supported through data.

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• Athletic Identity is stronger in current Athletes, possibly due to the increased pressure, time demands, and performance stress.

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• Emotional Distress may be influenced by additional factors such as injury, performance decline, and academic deadlines.

Conclusions

• Current Athletes demonstrated significantly higher Athletic Identity (AIMS scores) compared to former athletes.

• No significant relationship was found between Athletic Identity (AIMS) totals and Emotional Distress (BSI) totals.

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• Emotional distress levels were consistent across gender and playing status groups.

Future Directions

Limitations

Due to the small sample size, unequal group distribution among participants, and limited recruitment methods statistical significance was not found.

Future Research

Further research would benefit from a larger, more diverse sample size, as well as including different competitive levels. Along with examining additional variables such as injury history, social support, and coping strategies used by the individuals in periods of stress. In order to, potentially improve mental health programs for athletes and create a more accessible environment for athletes to go to when they need help.

References

Thank you

Griffin Hernalsteen

ghernalsteen@rcu.edu