Coping styles among adolescent competitive athletes.

The use of approach and avoidance coping styles and task-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies in competitive sport was explored. Four hundred twenty-one adolescent males from New South Wales, Australia, who were currently competing in team sports indicated their usual responses to each of 8 acute stressors commonly experienced in sport, using a 128-item inventory. The reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) for each stressor ranged from .81 to .92. Twenty-six of the original 128 items on the inventory were retained, on the basis of factor analysis. Correlations between stressors indicated that coping styles were a function of type of stressor, providing support for the transactional model. Goodness of fit was high (.87). The present results partially support the construct of coping style among adolescent-aged sports competitors.