A comparative study of coping styles in college athletes with higher and lower levels of Sense of Coherence (SOC)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the style of coping with difficulties and the level of Sense of Coherence (SOC) among college athletes. The subjects were 113 college athletes (68 males, 45 females) from metropolitan colleges who were asked how they coped with difficulties in competitive sports, and their levels of SOC were assessed individually. SOC was measured by using the Japanese version of the SOC13 (Yamazaki, 1999). Twenty-one athletes (12 males, 9 females; mean age 20.1±0.3 years) were chosen on the basis of two criteria: 1) a high level of performance in competition, and 2) experience of coping with more difficult situations during their junior and/or senior high school days. They were divided into two groups on the basis of previous studies: one with a high level of SOC (HS) and the other with a low level of SOC (LS). The mean SOC score in the HS group was significantly higher than that in the LS group [t(19)=6.03, p<.001]. Differences in coping style between these groups were analyzed qualitatively using the KJ Method. For the HS group, key words for summarizing the coping style were “self-transformation by learning” and “the presence of others”, whereas for the LS group, the key words were “no inspection” and “selfish”. Thus, the coping style in the HS group contrasted to that in the LS group. It was supposed that coping style in the HS group was related to good experiences that had strengthened the SOC.