Mental strength assessment in combat sports practitioners and non-practitioners
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14198/jhse.2024.192.04Keywords:
Mental toughness, Perseverance, Resilience, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Wrestling, Muay Thai, Martial artsAbstract
Mental strength is defined as a person’s ability to persist through challenging situations and recover from hardships and failures. Due to combat sports (CS) vigorous nature, several authors have identified various psychological factors modified through CS engagement and experience. This research aimed to determine the psychometrics of the Mental Strength Scale, explore the correlations between mental strength and age, CS experience, and competitive engagement, and investigate the existing group differences in mental strength based on sex, age, CS engagement, competition engagement, and CS experience. The total sample included 431 participants from 18 to 67 years of age, including 373 CS practitioners and 58 non-practitioners. Results revealed that The Mental Strength Scale demonstrated good internal validity (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.809) and convergent validity (Grit Scale correlation: p < .001, r = .539; Brief Resilience Scale correlation: p < .001, r = .551). A positive correlation was found between CS experience and mental strength. Group comparison demonstrated higher mental strength in CS practitioners than non-practitioners and in men compared to women. Moreover, CS participants in the >5, 2-5, and <2 years of experience reported higher mental strength than participants with no CS experience. In conclusion, the findings confirm that the Mental Strength Scale is a good psychometric instrument to assess the degree of mental strength, particularly in CS practitioners, and that CS engagement and experience positively influence the development of mental strength.
Downloads
References
Daniels, B. T., Human, A. E., Gallagher, K. M., & Howie, E. K. (2021). Relationships between grit, physical activity, and academic success in university students: Domains of physical activity matter. Journal of American College Health, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2021.1950163
Dagnall, N., Denovan, A., Papageorgiou, K. A., Clough, P. J., Parker, A., & Drinkwater, K. G. (2019). Psychometric assessment of shortened Mental Toughness Questionnaires (MTQ): Factor structure of the MTQ-18 and the MTQ-10. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1933. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01933
Datu, J. A. D., Yuen, M., Fung, E., Zhang, J., Chan, S., & Wu, F. (2022). The satisfied lives of gifted and gritty adolescents: Linking grit to career self-efficacy and life satisfaction. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 42(8) 1052-1072. https://doi.org/10.1177/02724316221096082
Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087
Dunston, E. R., Messina, E. S., Coelho, A. J., Chriest, S. N., Waldrip, M. P., Vahk, A., & Taylor, K. (2022). Physical activity is associated with grit and resilience in college students: Is intensity the key to success? Journal of American College Health, 70(1), 216-222. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1740229
Franchini, E., Brito, C. J., Fukuda, D. H., & Artioli, G. G. (2014). The physiology of judo-specific training modalities. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 28(5), 1474-1481. https://doi.org/10.1080/24748668.2013.11868676
Küçük, K. S. (2020). Relationship between psychological resilience and stress coping strategies in karate athletes. Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas, 15(2), 59-58. https://doi.org/10.18002/rama.v15i2.6257
Li, J., Fang, M., Wang, W., Sun, G., & Cheng, Z. (2018). The influence of grit on life satisfaction: Self-esteem as a mediator. Psychologica Belgica, 58(1), 51-66. https://doi.org/10.5334/pb.400
Liu, H., Yu, Z., Ye, B., & Yang, Q. (2022). Grit and life satisfaction among college students during the recurrent outbreak of COVID-19 in China: The mediating role of depression and the moderating role of stressful life events. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, 895510. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.895510
Lochbaum, M., Stoner, E., Hefner, T., Cooper, S., Lane, A. M., & Terry, P. C. (2022). Sport psychology and performance meta-analyses: A systematic review of the literature. PloS One, 17(2), e0263408. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408
Lorenco-Lima, L. (2023). The effect of combat sports experience, competition engagement, sex, and age on grit. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, in press https://doi.org/10.14198/jhse.2024.191.11
Lorenco-Lima, L., Love, A., Brooks, K., Tsalafos, A., & Donohue, B. (2023). Physical fitness and mental wellness optimization in athletes and non-athletes. Association for Applied Sports Psychology 38th Annual Conference.
Lorenço-Lima, L., Souza-Junior, T. P., Okuyama, A. R., Mcanulty, S. R., Utter, A. C., Monteiro, T. S., Barquilha, G., Bortolon, J. R., Geraldo, T. P., & Hirabara, S. (2020). Characterization of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training effects on the physical fitness of men and women. Journal of Physical Education & Sport, 20, 2990-2995. https://doi.org/10.7752/jpes.2020.s5406
Madrigal, L., Hamill, S., & Gill, D. L. (2013). Mind over matter: The development of the Mental Toughness Scale (MTS). The Sport Psychologist, 27(1), 62-77. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.27.1.62
Pujszo, M., Janowska, P., & Stępniak, R. (2019). The psychic resilience on an example of some martial arts fighters. Journal of Education, Health and Sport, 9(7), 467-478.
Sawyer, T. P., Hollis-Sawyer, L., & Wade, J. (2018). Grit and children's taekwondo performance. International Journal of Martial Arts, 4, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.51222/injoma.2018.04.4.1
Sivan, A., & Zeba K. H. F. (2023). Resilience and life satisfaction among Karate and Kalaripayattu practitioners. Journal of Psychosocial Research, 18(1).
Shamshirian, S., Halldorsson, V., & Sigmundsson, H. (2021). Passion, grit and mindset of Iranian wrestlers: A socio-psychological approach. New Ideas in Psychology, 62, 100871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100871
Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972
Smith, B.W., Epstein, E.E., Oritz, J.A., Christopher, P.K., & Tooley, E.M. (2013). The Foundations of Resilience: What are the critical resources for bouncing back from stress? In Prince-Embury, S. & Saklofske, D.H. (Eds.), Resilience in children, adolescents, and adults: Translating research into practice, The Springer series on human exceptionality (pp. 167-187). New York, NY: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4939-3_13
Ye, Y. C., Wu, C. H., Huang, T. Y., & Yang, C. T. (2022). The difference between the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and the Brief Resilience Scale when assessing resilience: Confirmatory factor analysis and predictive effects. Global Mental Health (Cambridge, England), 9, 339-346. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2022.38
Yerkes R. M. (1918). Measuring the Mental Strength of an Army. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 4(10), 295-297. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.4.10.295
Downloads
Statistics
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 University of Alicante
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Each author warrants that his or her submission to the Work is original and that he or she has full power to enter into this agreement. Neither this Work nor a similar work has been published elsewhere in any language nor shall be submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration by JHSE. Each author also accepts that the JHSE will not be held legally responsible for any claims of compensation.
Authors wishing to include figures or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Please include at the end of the acknowledgements a declaration that the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the abovementioned requirements. The author(s) will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.
This title is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
You are free to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
Transfer of Copyright
In consideration of JHSE’s publication of the Work, the authors hereby transfer, assign, and otherwise convey all copyright ownership worldwide, in all languages, and in all forms of media now or hereafter known, including electronic media such as CD-ROM, Internet, and Intranet, to JHSE. If JHSE should decide for any reason not to publish an author’s submission to the Work, JHSE shall give prompt notice of its decision to the corresponding author, this agreement shall terminate, and neither the author nor JHSE shall be under any further liability or obligation.
Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (e.g., consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc.) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article, except as disclosed on a separate attachment. All funding sources supporting the Work and all institutional or corporate affiliations of the authors are acknowledged in a footnote in the Work.
Each author certifies that his or her institution has approved the protocol for any investigation involving humans or animals and that all experimentation was conducted in conformity with ethical and humane principles of research.
Competing Interests
Biomedical journals typically require authors and reviewers to declare if they have any competing interests with regard to their research.
JHSE require authors to agree to Copyright Notice as part of the submission process.
