Anxiety, Aggression, mindfulness and emotional intelligence of Indian sports persons : A correlational study

Abstract

Background Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other unpleasantness upon another individual. It may occur either reactively or without provocation. Anxiety is your body's natural response to stress. It's a feeling of fear or apprehension about what's to come. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. Aim of this study to see the correlation between mindfulness and anxiety, mindfulness and aggression and emotional intelligence with aggression and anxiety. Materials and method 265 sports person with in age range from 20 to 30 years participated in the study. This sample study is conducted to know the relation among variables mindfulness, emotional intelligence, aggression and anxiety. Mindful Attention Awareness Scale questioner was used to asses mindfulness, Sports Aggression Inventory questioner was used to asses aggression, Sport Anxiety Scale questioner was used to asses anxiety and Sport Emotional Intelligence questioner was used to asses emotional intelligence. Spearmen’s correlation test was used to see the correlation among variables. Results: Result of the Spearmen correlation indicated that there was a significant positive correlation between sports anxiety and sports aggression (rs=0.193, p=0.002).Result of the Spearmen correlation indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between emotional intelligence and sports anxiety(rs= -0.152, p=0.003),between sports aggression and emotional intelligence(rs= -0.156, p=0.011). Result of the Spearmen correlation indicated that there was a significant correlation sports anxiety and mindfulness,(rs=0.441, p<0.001). Result of the Spearmen correlation indicated that there was no significant correlation between sports aggression and mindfulness,(rs=0.080, p<0.193). Conclusion: This sample study was conducted to know the correlation of sports anxiety and aggression with emotional intelligence and mindfulness. This study indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between emotional intelligence and sports anxiety, sports aggression and emotional intelligence, findings of study also revealed a significant positive correlation between sports anxiety and sports aggression, whereas there was no significant correlation between sports aggression and mindfulness. Also, positive correlation between sports anxiety and mindfulness was observed which could be due to low sample size, response bias and sportsperson without experience of mindfulness