Introduction
Aggression demonstrated by athletes during different types of sports activities is not unusual because of the specifics of competition and individuals’ reactions to the loss and failures. The problem is that aggressive behaviors negatively affect athletes’ performance through their possible disqualification or the consequences of an unstable psychological state (Gill, Williams, & Reifsteck, 2017).
Therefore, coaches, sports psychologists, and athletes need to know how to effectively manage aggression to prevent its negative outcomes on performance. Many recently developed approaches, practices, and techniques for coping with aggressive behavior in the context of sports psychology should be studied in detail. This paper aims to analyze the specifics and causes of aggression in athletes with reference to the theories behind the issue, evaluate modern approaches to managing aggression, and provide effective solutions.
Difficulties in Managing Aggression in Athletes: Issue Description
Aggression can be defined as a behavior usually associated with a physical act of harming another person. Thus, aggression in athletes is related to their hostile behavior against their opponents (Sofia & Cruz, 2017). However, it is also necessary to differentiate between intentional aggression and the assertive behavior of athletes when they choose to play aggressively to demonstrate their strength and destabilize opponents. Coaches and sport psychologists are interested in overcoming and managing the cases of intentional harmful behaviors demonstrated by athletes because this aggression can be a result of deeper psychological problems (Gill et al., 2017). In the context of sports activities, aggression is usually easily provoked, and athletes’ inability to control their actions can be strategically disadvantageous (Stanger, Kavussanu, McIntyre, & Ring, 2016). Aggression can be instrumental and hostile, and instrumental aggression is observed when athletes act aggressively to achieve certain goals. Still, hostile aggression requires more attention from coaches and sport psychologists because it is associated with the primary goal of causing harm (Gill et al., 2017). The nature of aggression in athletes is studied with the help of theories that explain why athletes choose destructive behaviors.
The key frameworks explaining aggression in the sphere of sports are drive theories, instinct theories, and social learning theories. According to instinct theories, aggressiveness should be discussed as an inborn characteristic of an individual. As a result, only those athletes act aggressively who are inclined to demonstrate their violence. The frustration-aggression theory is one of the drive theories that explain aggressive acts as the results of athletes’ frustration and loss (Gill et al., 2017). However, today this theory is not widely supported in sport psychology. There are also aversive stimulation and reversal theories that explain aggression from the perspective of being influenced by certain stimuli. Thus, stimuli cause particular emotions in athletes, not only anger, and, as a result, they can act aggressively (Kerr & Grange, 2016). According to the social learning theory, athletes learn aggressive behavioral patterns associated with sports and begin to follow them in their performance (Gill et al., 2017). From this perspective, different theories are based on various explanations of the origins of aggression in athletes.
When referring to the discussed theories, it is possible to identify certain difficulties in managing aggression in athletes that are usually identified by coaches, sport psychologists, and researchers. They include the impossibility to reduce aggression as quickly as possible, problems with attention and performance caused by aggressive acts, arousal and power associated with aggression stimulating athletes to use it again (Kerr & Grange, 2016). Other difficulties faced by coaches are the impossibility to contribute to building stable relations within a team, possible disqualification for inappropriate behaviors, and anti-social behaviors in athletes (Stanger et al., 2016). To overcome problems caused by athletes’ aggression, coaches and sport psychologies are expected to apply certain strategies and practices. Nevertheless, in many cases, they cannot influence athletes’ behaviors if these individuals perceive their aggression as having positive effects on their performance or being reasonable. As a result, coaches need to refer to theory- and evidence-based practices to overcome aggression and eliminate potential triggers for hostile reactions if it is possible.
Effective Approaches to Managing Aggression: Issue Analysis and Solutions
Having identified difficulties in managing aggression in athletes, researchers also proposed several approaches to coping with the problem that are grounded in the existing theories. Still, the analysis of research in the field indicates that not all researchers and coaches agree that aggressive behaviors should be addressed and eliminated (Gill et al., 2017). The reason is that professional sport in many cases is associated with aggressive behaviors as the demonstration of power to destabilize opponents and achieve psychological arousal to win the completion (Sofia & Cruz, 2017). In this context, aggressive behaviors are viewed as typical of sports, aggressiveness is perceived as an innate quality, and there is no need to prevent hostile behaviors and acts.
However, on the other hand, aggression is evidenced to lead to negative impacts on athletes’ behaviors, decreases in their performance, and official sanctions against athletes demonstrating violence. Despite the fact that violence is often regarded as typical of sports, aggressive behaviors are not reported to be directly associated with athletes’ higher results and improved performance (Kerr & Grange, 2016). Instead, those athletes who choose to demonstrate both instrumental and hostile aggression are at risk of developing psychological problems because of the inability to cope with pressure (Gill et al., 2017). There are three important components to pay attention to when selecting strategies to manage aggression. They are the nature of aggression (instrumental or hostile), the origin of aggression (dependence on certain triggers), and the outcome of aggressive behavior for an athlete (increases or decreases in performance) (Gill et al., 2017; Stanger et al., 2016). Athletes who do not understand triggers causing them to be aggressive or who demonstrate perfect performance after using violence necessitate different management techniques. The problem of managing aggression requires its solution to guarantee athletes can regulate their emotions and behaviors to contribute to their performance.
The solution to the problem of managing aggression in athletes is in using evidence-based practices and approaches associated with positive results in individuals regarding the control of their reactions and acts. Researchers propose the following strategies to manage athletes’ aggression: psychotherapy with a focus on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), interventions based on the reversal theory and CBT, and the development of empathy within a team (Kerr & Grange, 2016; Stillman et al., 2019). Different types of interventions based on the reversal therapy and CBT are viewed by researchers and sport psychologists as most effective for coaches to manage violent behaviors in athletes. The reason is that these interventions improve athletes’ mood before and after the game, coaches apply an individual approach to promote positive thinking and teach athletes how to cope with typical triggers of aggression (Kerr & Grange, 2016). Athletes learn how to use relaxation techniques to cope with anger and anxiety and how to use positive reactions and behaviors instead of negative ones, based on demonstrating aggression.
Among all the approaches to managing aggressive behaviors in athletes, CBT-based interventions that also involve the assumptions of the reversal theory are effective to demonstrate individual solutions for different athletes. Thus, “by identifying the particular motivational states associated with an athlete’s performance impairment difficulty, a sport psychologist can then decide on a specific intervention” (Kerr & Grange, 2016, p. 183). Interventions can be selected among strategies oriented toward overcoming aggression based on telic-negativism, telic-mastery, and paratelic-negativism (Kerr & Grange, 2016). For example, those athletes who use aggression to demonstrate their anger with reference to telic-negativism and feel arousal and power require CBT-based strategies decreasing their arousal and stimulating their positive reactions. Those athletes who refer to power using aggression (telic-mastery) need to be demonstrated how this power is dysfunctional. Moreover, those athletes who choose to provoke opponents should be motivated by other high arousal activities (paratelic-negativism) to support their motivation.
Conclusion
The problem of managing aggression in athletes attracts researchers’ attention because coaches and sport psychologists need effective, working solutions to the problem in order to improve performance. If athletes express aggression, they are at risk of worsening their performance and receiving certain formal sanctions. Today, there are many interventions and strategies that are developed to be applied for managing aggressive behaviors in the sport context. The most effective interventions are oriented toward individuals’ needs as they are based on the principles of the reversal theory and CBT.
References
Gill, D. L., Williams, L., & Reifsteck, E. J. (2017). Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise (4th ed.). New York, NY: Human Kinetics.
Kerr, J. H., & Grange, P. (2016). Proposed intervention strategies for unsanctioned aggression management: Anger, power and thrill aggression. Sport Psychologist, 30(2), 179-188.
Sofia, R., & Cruz, J. F. A. (2017). Unveiling anger and aggression in sports: The effects of type of sport, competitive category and success level.Revista de Psicología Del Deporte, 26(2), 21-28. Web.
Stanger, N., Kavussanu, M., McIntyre, D., & Ring, C. (2016). Empathy inhibits aggression in competition: The role of provocation, emotion, and gender. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 38(1), 4-14.
Stillman, M. A., Glick, I. D., McDuff, D., Reardon, C. L., Hitchcock, M. E., Fitch, V. M., & Hainline, B. (2019). Psychotherapy for mental health symptoms and disorders in elite athletes: A narrative review.British Journal of Sports Medicine, 53(12), 767-771. Web.