Effectiveness of the Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention on Reducing Competitive Anxiety and Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Female Martial Artists

Athletic performance in Martial Arts Athletes is presented as the result of complex interaction among physical, social, technical and psychological variables. Especially, the psychological variable is one of the essential elements for the athletes to manage their game. The assessment of competitive anxiety responses and cognitive emotion regulation using the time-to-competition paradigm has gained much attention. However, literature on account of these same experiences in events and their corresponding psychological skills adopted under different conditions is limited. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral intervention on reducing competitive anxiety and cognitive emotion regulation in Female Martial Artists.This experimental study was a pre-test and post-test with the control group. The statistical population was all Female Martial Artists (karatekas and judokas) in Zabol studied in the ۲۰۲۱ Spring. The sample consisted of ۴۰ individuals selected by simple random sampling (N = ۲۰ in the experimental group and N = ۲۰ in the control group). The age of the athletes ranged between ۱۸ and ۲۵ years, and All had been practicing their sports for ۳-۵ years. Before and after intervention and one month later in the follow-up process, the subjects responded to research scales including the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-۲ (CSAI-۲) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). The experimental group received cognitive-behavioral intervention in ۱۲ sessions of each ۹۰ minutes. But there was no intervention on the control group. To analyze the data, Multivariate Covariance Analysis and One Way Covariance Analysis were applied.Findings showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the competitive anxiety (P < ۰. ۰۱) and cognitive emotional regulation (P < ۰.۰۵).According to the result, cognitive-behavioral intervention effectively reduces the competitive anxiety of athletes, increases the use of adaptive cognitive strategies, and reduces the use of maladaptive cognitive strategies in female martial artists.

کلیدواژه ها:

cognitive-behavioral intervention ، Emotional Cognitive Regulation ، Competitive anxiety ، female martial artists