Relationship between the orientation of learning about failure and depressive symptoms in university athletes

Abstract

Depression has become a major concern in recent years. Although a number of studies have examined various factors affecting depressive symptoms, few studies have been conducted with young adults. It is known that people can learn from failures. However, this does not mean that people necessarily feel positive emotions when they perform unsuccessfully in sports. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between learning orientation about failure and depressive symptoms, which were examined by using a questionnaire. Male university athletes in Hokkaido district (N=380) participated in the study. Learning orientation about failure that was categorized into four factors were considered as the independent variables, whereas the personality, university year, and sporting event were considered confounding variables, and depressive symptoms were considered the dependent variable. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine relationships between these variables. Results indicated that no, or little learning orientation about failure increased the incidence of depressive symptoms compared to high learning orientation about failure (odds ratio: 3.5, 95% confidence interval: 1.2–10.5, odds ratio: 2.2, 95% confidence interval: 1.02–4.9). These results suggest that low learning orientation about failure significantly affected depressive symptoms in university athletes, after controlling for confounding variables.