Erin Kirkland 

SOC-220-01 

Dr. Milne 

11/04/2024 

Athletic Identity

The end to a sports carer, or the suffering of a serious injury can be a devastating experience for athletes, challenging their identity and purpose. Many athletes will face mental health challenges and immeasurable struggles. According to an external source, “psychological recovery after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, surgery, and rehabilitation may include concerns related to self-identity, self-esteem, self-efficacy, health locus of control, fear/avoidance, kinesiophobia, and other factors.” (Nyland, J., & Pyle, B, 2022) Injuries can either lead to Retirement of sport or serious time off, which cause athletes to go through many struggles. There are many speed bumps and struggles that athletes face to make the transitions of retiring from their sport. According to the article, Adaptation to life after sport for retired athletes, “Among the 10 reviews that explored the general retirement experiences of athletes, we identified numerous barriers and facilitators that affected athletes’ ability to smoothly transition into life after sport. Barriers included: (1) having a high athletic identity; (2) high perfectionism and comparison; (3) athletic career dissatisfaction; (4) involuntary retirement (e.g., injury, contract, ability, or personal reasons); (5) amount of other life ` changes occurring at the same time as retirement; (6) despair about future career; (7) lack of coping strategies; (8) low social support” (Voorheis, P., Michelle Pannor Silver, & Consonni, J, 2023) An athletes identity largely surrounds their sport, but as they begin to finish their career athletes tend to be at loss for what their identity is now.  Athletes tend to be defensive to their identity, “similar to defence mechanisms used to protect the ego, de-identifying with the athlete role and devaluing one’s athletic identity safeguards a person’s sense of self when their athletic career is suddenly threatened by injury, or when rehabilitation progress is delayed or poor.” (Nyland, J., & Pyle, B, 2022) To protect their self-esteem, athletes may begin to think of themselves as “less of an athlete” when injured or struggling in recovery. They are able to cope with this by making their athletic identity feel less central to themselves. 

Athletic performance and mental health are affected by psychological factors and identity factors. Throughout these articles there was a common topic of athletic identity. According to an article, this current systematic review with a meta-analysis is specific to athletic identity, defined as “the degree to which an individual identifies with the athlete role” (Lochbaum, M., Cooper, S., & Limp, S. 2022) Athletic identity can be influenced by how good or bad an individual is doing in their sport. The psychological state of athletes, their self-identity, and their personality traits significantly impact their ability to deal with the pressures of their sports. In high-stakes situations, balancing competitive anxiety and maintaining concentration is essential, as shown in a study on Colombian elite athletes. According to the article, “self-confidence is likely to increase as athletes have better levels of acceptance, competence, and cognitive anxiety, and it is likely to reduce their indicators of somatic anxiety [9]. Therefore, cognitive and somatic anxiety are modulated by the athlete’s interpretation of them, which may be beneficial for their performance.” (Marín-González, F. H., Portela-Pino, I., Fuentes-García, J. P., & Martínez-Patiño, M. J, 2022) Feelings of acceptance and competence also impact athletes’ self-confidence, which influences performance. Athletes’ self-identity can be impacted by all these factors. Athletic resilience and confidence positively impact athletes in their sports. 

References 

Bojanić, Ž., Nedeljković, J., Šakan, D., Mitić, P. M., Milovanović, I., & Drid, P. (2019). Personality Traits and Self-Esteem in Combat and Team Sports. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02280 

Furie, K., Park, A. L., & Wong, S. E. (2023). Mental Health and Involuntary Retirement from Sports Post-Musculoskeletal Injury in Adult Athletes: a Systematic Review. Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-023-09830-6 

Lochbaum, M., Cooper, S., & Limp, S. (2022). The Athletic Identity Measurement Scale: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis from 1993 to 2021. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 12(9), 1391–1414. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe12090097 

Marín-González, F. H., Portela-Pino, I., Fuentes-García, J. P., & Martínez-Patiño, M. J. (2022). Relationship between Sports and Personal Variables and the Competitive Anxiety of Colombian Elite Athletes of Olympic and Paralympic Sports. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(13), 7791. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137791 

Nyland, J., & Pyle, B. (2022). Self-Identity and Adolescent Return to Sports Post-ACL Injury and Rehabilitation: Will Anyone Listen? Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation, 4(1), e287–e294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asmr.2021.09.042 

Voorheis, P., Michelle Pannor Silver, & Consonni, J. (2023). Adaptation to life after sport for retired athletes: A scoping review of existing reviews and programs. PLOS ONE, 18(9), e0291683–e0291683. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291683