Religious Belief vs. Religious Practice. What is More Beneficial to Elite Athletes? An Investigation of Religious/Spiritual Belief, and its Relationship to Challenge & Threat Appraisal

Abstract

Religiosity/spirituality has been linked with reduced anxiety in athlete populations. This study

set out to assess the impact of religious/spiritual belief, opposed to practice, to see whether it

too would predict anxiety, as well as feelings of control and cognitive appraisal in elite

athletes (N = 115). Self-reported self-efficacy, control, achievement goals, life satisfaction,

trait anxiety and strength of belief in a higher power (SBHP) were measured and analysed

with simple linear regressions and multiple regressions (with challenge and threat appraisals

as the dependent variables). The models predicting both challenge and threat appraisal were

found to be significant, although SBHP was not a significant predictor, nor was it

significantly predicative of any of the variables, or significantly correlated with them. The

contribution of religious/spiritual belief to psychological benefits is compared to

religious/spiritual practice and discussed alongside implications for future research and

applied practice.

Keywords

• sport,psychology,religion,spirituality,belief,anxiety,challenge,threat,appraisal

References

1. Alder D, Ford PR, Causer J, Williams AM (2016). The effects of high- and low-anxiety training on the anticipation judgments of elite performers. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 38(1), 93-104.
2. Bandura A (2006). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (Vol. 5, pp. 307-337). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
3. Bell NT, Johnson SR, Petersen JC (2009). Strength of religious faith of athletes and nonathletes at two NCAA division III institutions. The Sport Journal, 12(1), 1-10.
4. Benson PL, Roehlkepartain EC, Rude SP (2003). Spiritual development in childhood and adolescence: Toward a field of inquiry. Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 205-213.
5. Blascovich J, Tomaka J (1996). The biopsychosocial model of arousal regulation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 28, 1-51.
6. Blascovich J, Seery MD, Mugridge CA, Norris RK, Weisbuch M (2004). Predicting athletic performance from cardiovascular indexes of challenge and threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 683-688.
7. Button KS, Ioannidis JPA, Mokrysz C, Nosek BA, Flint J, Robinson ESJ, Munafò MR (2013). Power failure: Why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 14(5), 365-376.
8. Chidester D (1996). The church of baseball, the fetish of Coca-Cola, and the potlatch of rock 'n' roll: Theoretical models for the study of religion in American popular culture. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 64(4), 743-765.

9. Coakley JJ (2003). Sport in society. Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
10. Coffee P, Rees T (2008). Main and interactive effects of controllability and generalisability attributions upon self-efficacy. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9(6), 775-785.
11. Conroy DE, Elliot AJ, Hofer SM (2003). A 2 x 2 achievement goals questionnaire for sport: Evidence for factorial invariance, temporal stability, and external validity. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 25(4), 456-476.
12. Covassin T, Crutcher B, Bleecker A, Heiden EO, Dailey A, Yang J (2014). Postinjury anxiety and social support among collegiate athletes: A comparison between orthopaedic injuries and concussions. Journal of Athletic Training, 49(4), 462-468.
13. Cronin LD, Allen JB, School of Engineering, Sports and Sciences, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK. (2015). Developmental experiences and well-being in sport: The importance of the coaching climate. The Sport Psychologist, 29(1), 62-71.
14. Crust L (2006). Challenging the ‘myth’ of a spiritual dimension in sport. Athletic Insight: The Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 8, 17-31.
15. Cumming SJD, Turner MJ, Jones M (2017). Longitudinal Changes in Elite Rowers’ Challenge and Threat Appraisals of Pressure Situations: A Season-Long Observational Study. The Sport Psychologist, 31(3), 217-226.
16. Czech DR, Bullet E (2007). An exploratory description of Christian athletes' perceptions of prayer in sport: A mixed methodological pilot study. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2(1), 49-56.
17. Czech DR, Wrisberg C, Fisher L, Thompson C, Hayes G (2004). The experience of Christian prayer in sport - An Existential Phenomenological Investigation. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 2, 1-19.
18. Csíkszentmihályi M (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
19. Diener E, Emmons RA, Larsen RJ, Griffin S (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
20. Dillon KM, Tait JL (2000). Spirituality and being in the zone in team sports: A relationship? Journal of Sport Behavior, 23(2), 91-100.
21. Ellison CG, Boardman JD, Williams DR, Jackson JS (2001). Religious Involvement, Stress, and Mental Health: Findings from the 1995 Detroit Area Study. Social Forces, 80, 215-249.
22. Faul F, Erdfelder E, Buchner A, Lang AG (2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149- 1160.
23. Fernandez-Berrocal P, Alcaide R, Extremera N, Pizarro D (2006). The role of emotional intelligence in anxiety and depression among adolescents. Individual Differences Research, 4, 16-27.
24. Field AP (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (4th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.
25. Gonçalves JPB, Lucchetti G, Menezes PR, Vallada H (2015). Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Psychological Medicine, 45(14), 2937-2949.
26. Hackney CH, Sanders GS (2003). Religiosity and mental health: A meta-analysis of recent studies. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(1), 43-56.
27. Hair JF, Black WC, Babin BJ, Anderson RE, Tatham RL (2006). Multivariate data analysis. Prentice Hall Pearson Education.
28. Hardy L, Parfitt G (1991). A Catastrophe Model of Anxiety and Performance. British Journal of Psychology, 82, 163-178.
29. Hood RW, Hill PC, Spilka B (2009). The psychology of religion: An empirical approach. London: Guilford.
30. Isaacowitz D, Vallant G, Seligman M (2003). Strengths and Satisfaction across the Adult Lifespan. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 57(2), 181-201.
31. Jones M, Meijen C, McCarthy PJ, Sheffield D (2009). A theory of challenge and threat states in athletes. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 161-180.
32. Kahneman D (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33. Kim MS, Duda JL (2003). The coping process: Cognitive appraisals of stress, coping strategies, and coping effectiveness. Sport Psychologist, 17, 406-425.
34. Krane V (1992). Conceptual and Methodological Considerations in Sport Anxiety Research: From the Inverted-U Hypothesis to Catastrophe Theory. Quest, 44, 72-87.
35. Lavrič M, Flere S (2010). Trait anxiety and measures of religiosity in four cultural settings. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 13(7-8), 667-682.
36. Lawrence I (2005). The emergence of ‘sport and spirituality’ in popular culture. The Sport Journal, 8(2), 1-5.
37. Lazarus RS (1999). Stress and Emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer.
38. Leondari A, Gialamas V (2009). Religiosity and psychological well-being. International Journal of Psychology, 44(4), 241-248.
39. Maranise AM (2013). Superstition & religious ritual: An examination of their effects and utilization in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 27(1), 83-91.
40. Martens R, Burton D, Vealey R, Bump L, Smith D (1990). The Development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). In R. Martens, R. S. Vealey & D. Burton (Eds.). Competitive Anxiety in Sport (pp. 117-190). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
41. McNally IM (2002). Contrasting concepts of competitive state-anxiety in sport: Multidimensional anxiety and catastrophe theories. Athletic Insight: Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 4, 10-22.
42. Meijen C, Jones MV, McCarthy PJ, Sheffield D, Allen MS (2013). Cognitive and affective components of challenge and threat states. Journal of Sports Sciences, 31(8), 847-855.
43. Moore LJ, Vine SJ, Wilson MR, Freeman P (2012). The effect of challenge and threat states on performance: An examination of potential mechanisms. Psychophysiology, 49(10), 1417- 1425.
44. Mosley MJ, Frierson DJ, Cheng Y, Aoyagi MW (2015). Spirituality & sport: Consulting the Christian athlete. The Sport Psychologist, 29, 371-386.
45. Mottaghi M, Atarodi A, Rohani Z (2013). The relationship between coaches' and athletes' competitive anxiety, and their performance. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 7(2), 68-76.
46. Najah A, Farooq A, Rejeb RB (2017). Role of Religious Beliefs and Practices on the Mental Health of Athletes with Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury. Advances in Physical Education, 7, 181-190.
47. Nunnally JC (1967). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
48. O'Rourke DJ, Smith RE, Smoll FL, Cumming SP (2011). Trait anxiety in young athletes as a function of parental pressure and motivational climate: Is parental pressure always harmful? Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 23(4), 398-412.
49. Park JK (2000). Coping strategies used by Korean national athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 63-80.
50. Perry RP, Hladkyj S, Pekrun RH, Pelletier ST (2001). Academic control and action control in the achievement of college students: A longitudinal field study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(4), 776-789.
51. Petito A, Altamura M, Iuso S, Padalino FA, Sessa F, D'Andrea G, Margaglione M, Bellomo A (2016). The relationship between personality traits, the 5HTT polymorphisms, and the occurrence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in elite athletes. PloS One, 11(6), 1-13.
52. Pew Research Centre: ‘Nones on the rise’, Retrieved from Pew Centre Forum (2012). Retrieved January 30, 2017 from http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/
53. Pew Research Centre: Religious Landscape Study, Retrieved from Pew Centre Forum (2014). Retrieved January 30, 2017 from http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
54. Pew Center: World Will Get More Religious by 2050, Retrieved from Live Science (2015). Retrieved January 30, 2017 from http://www.livescience.com/50370-worlds-religiouspopulation- will-grow.html
55. Prebish C (1992). Religion and Sport: The Meeting of Sacred and Profane (Ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Qualtrics [Computer software]. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.qualtrics.com/uk/
56. Reid S (2016). Is sport an Australian religion? Pointers: Bulletin of the Christian Research Association, 26(1), 11-13.
57. Rodek J, Sekulic D, Pasalic E (2009). Can we consider religiousness as a protective factor against doping behavior in sport? Journal of Religion and Health, 48(4), 445-453.
58. Rosmarin DH, Pargament KI, Mahoney A (2009). The role of religiousness in anxiety, depression, and happiness in a Jewish community sample: A preliminary investigation. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 12(2), 97-113.
59. Sarkar M, Hill DM, Parker A (2014). Reprint of: Working with religious and spiritual athletes: Ethical considerations for sport psychologists. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, 48-55.
60. Saw AE, Kellmann M, Main LC, Gastin PB (2017). Athlete self-report measures in research and practice: Considerations for the discerning reader and fastidious practitioner. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 12, 127-135.
61. Schofield MB, Baker IS, Staples P, Sheffield D (2016). Mental representations of the supernatural: A cluster analysis of religiosity, spirituality and paranormal belief. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 419-424.
62. Schuurmans-Stekhoven J (2014). Measuring Spirituality as Personal Belief in Supernatural Forces: Is the Character Strength Inventory-Spirituality subscale a brief, reliable and valid measure? Implicit Religion 17(2), 211-222.
63. Sedgwick P (2014). Cross sectional studies: advantages and disadvantages. BMJ, 348, 2276- 2277.
64. Serazio M (2013). The Elementary Forms of Sports Fandom: A Durkheimian Exploration of Team Myths, Kinship, and Totemic Rituals. Communication and Sport, 1(4), 303-325.
65. Shorack GR (1996). Linear rank statistics, finite sampling, permutation tests and winsorizing. The Annals of Statistics, 24(3), 1371-1385.
66. Skinner N, Brewer N (2002). The dynamics of threat and challenge appraisals prior to stressful achievement events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 678-692.
67. Spielberger CD, Gorsuch RL, Lushene R, Vagg PR, Jacobs GA (1983). Manual for the State- Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
68. Spittle M, Dillon R (2014). Mystical experience to measurable description: The relationship between spirituality and flow in golf. Physical Education and Sport, 12(1), 1-10.
69. Snider A, McPhedran S (2014). Religiosity, spirituality, mental health, and mental health treatment outcomes in Australia: A systematic literature review. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 17(6), 568-581.
70. Stevenson CL (1991). The Christian-Athlete: An Interactionist-Developmental Analysis. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8, 362-379.
71. Stoeber J, Stoeber FS (2009). Domains of perfectionism: Prevalence and relationships with perfectionism, gender, age, and satisfaction with life. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 530-535.
72. Stoeber J, Stoll O, Salmi O, Tiikkaja J (2009). Perfectionism and achievement goals in young Finnish ice-hockey players aspiring to make the under-16 national team. Journal of Sports Sciences, 27(1), 85-94.
73. Storch EA, Kolsky AR, Silvestri M, Storch JB (2001). Religiosity of Elite College Athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 15, 346-351.
74. Storch EA, Storch JB, Kovacs AH, Okun A, Welsh E (2003). Intrinsic religiosity and substance use in intercollegiate athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 25(2), 248- 252.
75. Swann C, Moran A, Piggott D (2015). Defining elite athletes: Issues in the study of expert performance in sport psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 3-14.
76. Swann C, Keegan RJ, Piggott D, Crust L (2012). A systematic review of the experience, occurrence, and controllability of flow states in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 807-819.
77. Thomas JR (2011). Research methods in physical activity (6th ed.). Leeds: Human Kinetics.
78. Turner MJ, Jones MV, Sheffield D, Cross SL (2012). Cardiovascular indices of challenge and threat states predict performance under stress in cognitive and motor tasks. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 86, 48-57.
79. Turner MJ, Jones MV, Sheffield D, Slater MJ, Barker JB, Bell JJ (2013). Who thrives under pressure? Predicting the performance of elite academy cricketers using the cardiovascular indicators of challenge and threat states. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35(4), 387- 397.
80. Vasegh S, Mohammadi M (2007). Religiosity, anxiety, and depression among a sample of Iranian medical students. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 37(2), 213-227.
81. Vernacchia RA, McGuire RT, Reardon JP, Templin DP (2000). Psychosocial characteristics of Olympic track and field athletes. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 31, 5-23.
82. Vine SJ, Freeman P, Moore LJ, Chandra-Ramanan R, Wilson MR (2013). Evaluating stress as a challenge is associated with superior attentional control and motor skill performance: Testing the predictions of the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19(3), 185-194.
83. Wann DL (2001). Sport fans: The psychology and social impact of spectators. London: Routledge
84. Wann DL, Melznick MJ, Russell GW, Pease DG (2001). Sport fans: The psychology and social impact of spectators. New York: Routledge.
85. Watson NJ, Czech DR (2005). The use of prayer in sport: Implications for sport psychology consulting. Athletic Insight: The Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 7(4), 26-31.
86. Watson NJ, Nesti M (2005). The Role of Spirituality in Sport Psychology Consulting: An Analysis and Integrative Review of Literature. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 228- 239.
87. Williams SE, Cumming J (2012). Sport imagery ability predicts trait confidence, and challenge and threat appraisal tendencies. European Journal of Sport Science, 12(6), 499-508.
88. Womack M (1992). Why athletes need a ritual: A study of magic among professional athletes. In S. Hoffman (Ed.), Sport and religion (pp. 191-202). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
89. Zinnbauer BJ, Pargament KI, Cole B, Rye MS, Butter EM, Belavich TG, Hipp KM, Scott AB, Kadar JL (1997). Religion and spirituality: Unfuzzying the fuzzy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 36(4), 549-564.