In the pursuit of Mental Toughness = Is Creating Mentally Tough Players a Disguise for Emotional Abuse?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study was to explore elite youth football coaches understanding of mental toughness and the methods used by them to develop it. Semi structured interviews were conducted with 12 elite youth football coaches and analysed using content analysis. Data revealed that all coaches identified mental toughness as a key ingredient to a successful sporting career and actively sought to create environments, which they believed would enhance the mental toughness of their players. All coaches engaged in or witnessed the use of a range of emotionally abusive behaviours, perceived as legitimate methods of developing mental toughness. Methods included deliberately creating harsh training environments through humiliation, intimidation, belittling and forced physical exertion. These findings provide evidence of the use of behaviours that may be considered emotionally abusive in elite youth sport. Findings also suggest that such behaviours are performed in the pursuit of developing mentally tough players.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• References