Emotions in sports and exercise: A systematic approach to their causes, correlates, and consequences

09:30 - 11:00
Speaker
Affiliation

Maik Bieleke

Senior Researcher and Laboratory Head, Department of Sport Science, University of Konstanz, Germany

Date

Jul 5, 2024

Abstract

Sports and exercise environments evoke a wide range of emotions, such as anxiety before a competition, joy during a game, frustration after missing a goal, or relief at the end of a tough training session. Despite their prevalence, these emotions have rarely been systematically studied within sport and exercise psychology. The potential relationships between different emotions, the heterogeneity within positive and negative emotions, and their impact on effort and performance have been largely overlooked. This oversight is surprising given the significant insights gained from studying discrete emotions in related fields, such as educational psychology.

To address this gap, I will present data from two related lines of research. First, I will discuss the development of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire for Sports and Exercise (AEQ-SE), which measures several distinct emotions commonly experienced in sports and exercise contexts. Second, I will focus on emerging research on boredom that emphasizes its prevalence and importance for exercisers. From a methodological perspective, I will demonstrate the utility of psychometric network approaches to explore the internal and external structure of emotions and their associations with motivation, effort, and performance.