The Role of Emotional Regulation in the Performance of Contact-Sport Athletes (Combat Sports, Football) Under Competitive Pressure

Background: Emotional regulation is theorized to shape athletic performance under competitive pressure, yet most evidence derives from single-discipline studies using non-equivalent instruments, leaving it unclear whether regulation–performance associations generalize across contact-sport disciplines that share direct physical confrontation. This study examined whether emotional regulation strategies relate to competitive performance comparably in combat-sport athletes and football players under competitive pressure. Methods: A comparative cross-sectional design was used with combat-sport athletes (judo, karate, taekwondo, wrestling, mixed martial arts) and football players recruited from competitive clubs and federations. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were assessed using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, competitive anxiety using the Sport Anxiety Scale-۲, and aggression within the combat-sport subsample using the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire. Performance was operationalized through coach ratings and discipline-specific competition statistics. Group comparisons, correlational analyses, and hierarchical moderated regression were used to test sport type as a moderator of the regulation–performance association, controlling for age, sex, and competitive experience. Results (illustrative, non-empirical — see warning above): Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression scores differed modestly between combat-sport athletes and football players. Reappraisal was positively associated with performance and suppression negatively associated with performance across the combined sample; both associations were stronger among combat-sport athletes. The interaction between reappraisal and sport type significantly predicted performance, whereas the suppression-by-sport-type interaction did not. Within the combat-sport subsample, suppression was positively associated with aggression, and physical aggression scores differed across disciplines, with mixed martial arts practitioners scoring higher than judo practitioners. Competitive worry was higher among football players, while somatic anxiety and concentration disruption did not differ by sport type. Conclusion: Emotional regulation does not appear to influence competitive performance uniformly across contact-sport disciplines; the performance relevance of cognitive reappraisal was more pronounced among combat-sport athletes, whereas expressive suppression showed a comparable association with performance across both disciplines. These findings suggest that psychological skills training targeting emotional regulation should be calibrated to the structural demands of the specific contact sport rather than applied as a uniform intervention.

کلیدواژه ها:

Emotional regulation ، competitive anxiety ، combat sports ، athletic performance ، cognitive reappraisal