Coping with Stress and Pain in Hard and Soft Adventure Mountain Athletes

Piotr Próchniak

doi:10.18290/rpsych20232-3

Piotr Próchniak University of Szczecin, Institute of Psychology, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3725-0076

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rpsych20232-3

Keywords: mountaineering, coping, stress, pain, adventure, athletes

Abstract

Several scales were used to assess the levels of coping with stress and pain of 97 Polish hard adventure mountain athletes (Mage = 30.50, SD = 9.45), who climb in winter using mountain ice axes, harnesses, hooks or ropes in high mountains, and 103 Polish soft adventure mountain athletes who summer hike in low mountains (Mage = 28.30, SD = 6.50). The results indicated significant differences between soft and hard adventure climbers in the ways climbers react to stress. The hard adventure climbing group had significantly higher means on the Preventive Coping, Proactive Coping, Task-Oriented Coping, Diverting Attention, Reinterpretation of Pain, Ignoring Pain, Coping Self-Statements and Behavioural Strategies than the soft adventure mountain athletes, but lower means on Emotion-Oriented Coping, Catastrophising and Praying/Hoping compared to the soft mountain athletes group. This study also examined the factor structure of the coping scales in the climbers’ samples. The results suggested that the coping scales contain the following three factors: Passive-Oriented Coping, Future-Oriented Coping and Appraisal-Oriented Coping. The extracted factors discriminate between soft and hard adventure mountain athletes. The hard adventure mountain athletes had significantly higher means on the Future-Oriented Coping and the Appraisal- Oriented Coping, and a lower mean on Passive-Oriented Coping than the soft mountain athletes group.

References

Aldwin, C. M. (2007). Stress, coping, and development: An integrative perspective (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Allen, K. D., Oddone, E. Z., Coffman, C. J., Keefe, F. J., Lindquist, J. H., & Bosworth, H. B. (2010). Racial differences in osteoarthritis pain and function: Potential explanatory factors. Osteoarthritis Cartilage, 18, 160–167.

Anshel, M., & Anderson, D. (2002). Coping with acute stress in sport: linking athletes’ coping style, coping strategies, affect, and motor performance. Anxiety Stress Coping, 15, 193–209.

Beedie, P. (2008). Adventure tourism as a ‘new frontier’ in Leisure. World Leisure Journal, 50(3), 173–183.

Ben-Zur, H. (2009). Coping styles and affect. International Journal of Stress Management, 16(2), 87–101.

Boothby, J. L., Thorn, B. E., Stroud, M. W., & Jensen, M. P. (1999). Coping with pain. In R. J. Gatchel & D. C. Turk (Eds.), Psychosocial factors in pain (pp. 343–359). Guilford Press.

Breivik, G. (1996). Personality, sensation seeking and risk taking among Everest climbers. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 27, 308–320.

Brymer, E. (2010). Risk and extreme sports: A phenomenological perspective. Annals of Leisure Research, 13(1–2), 218–239.

Brymer, E., & Schweitzer, R. D. (2013). The search for freedom in extreme sports: A phenomenological exploration. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 14(6), 865–873.

Brymer, E., & Schweizter, R. D. (2017). Evoking the ineffable: The phenomenology of extreme Sports. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4(1), 63–74.

Buckley, R. (2006). Adventure tourism research: A guide to the literature. Tourism Recreation Research, 31(2), 75–83.

Buckley, R. (2011). Rush as a key motivation in skilled adventure tourism. Tourism Management, 33(4), 961–970.

Buckley, R. (2018). To Analyze Thrill, Define Extreme Sports. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1–11.

Campbell, J., & Ehlert, U. (2012). Acute psychosocial stress: Does the emotional stress response correspond with physiological responses? Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37, 1111–1134.

Carver, C. S., & Connor-Smith, J. (2010). Personality and Coping. Journal of Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 679–704.

Castanier, C., Scanff, C. L., & Woodman, T. (2010). Who takes risks in high-risk sports? A typological personality approach. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 81(4), 478–484.

Cioffi, D. (1991). Sensory awareness versus sensory impression: Affect and attention interact to produce somatic meaning. Cognition and Emotion, 5(4), 275–294.

Cohan, S. L., Jang, K. L., & Stein, M. B. (2006). Confirmatory factor analysis of a short form of the coping inventory for stressful situations. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62, 273–283.

Couture, S., Brown, T. G., Ouimet, M. C., Gianoulakis, C., Tremblay, J., & Carbonneau, R. (2008). Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis response to stress in male DUI recidivists. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 40, 246–253.

Cox, T., & Ferguson, E. (1991). Individual differences, stress and coping. In C. L. Cooper & R. Payne (Eds.), Personality and stress: Individual differences in the stress process (pp. 7–30). Chichester: Wiley & Sons.

Cronin, Ch. (1991). Sensation seeking among mountain climbers. Personality and Individual Differences, 12(6), 653–654.

Csikszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.

Cudeck, R. (2000). Exploratory factor analysis. In H. E. Tinsley & S. D. Brown (Eds.), Handbook of applied multivariate statistics and mathematical modeling (pp. 266–296). Academic Press.

Demirhan, G. (2005). Mountaineers’ risk perception in outdoor-adventure sports: A study of sex and sports experience. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 100 (3 Pt 2), 1155–60.

Demirhan, G., Asci, F. H., Kangalgil, M., & Saracbasi, O. (2014). Perception of risk and

attractiveness of extreme sports among Turkish university students. Hacettepe Journal of Sport Sciences, 25(1), 11–22.

Deroche, T., Woodman, T., Stephan, Y., Brewer, B., & Le Scanff, C. (2011). Athletes’ inclination to play through pain: A coping perspective. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 24(5), 579–587.

Dias, C., Cruz, J. F., & Fonseca, A. (2012). The relationship between multidimensional competitive anxiety, cognitive threat appraisal, and coping strategies: A multisport study. Journal of Sport Exercise Psychology, 10, 52–65.

Egan, S., & Stelmack, M. R. (2003). A personality profile of Mount Everest climbers. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(8), 1491–1494.

Endler, N. S., & Parker, J. D. A. (1990). Multidimensional assessment of coping: A critical evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 844–854.

Ewert, A. W., Gilbertson, K., Luo, Y. & Voight, T. A. (2013). Beyond “because it’s there”: Motivations for pursuing adventure recreational activities. Journal of Leisure Research, 45(1), 91–111.

Fave, A. D., Bassi, M. & Massimini, F. (2003). Quality of experience and risk perception in high-altitude rock climbing. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 15, 82–99.

Folkman, S. (2010). Stress, coping, and hope. Psycho‐Oncology, 19(9), 901–908.

Folkman, S., & Moskowitz , J. (2004). Coping: Pitfalls and Promise. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 745–774.

Frenkel, M. O., Heck, R. B., & Plessner, H. (2018). Cortisol and behavioral reaction of low and high sensation seekers differ in responding to a sport-specific stressor. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping 31, 580–593.

Giles, D., Draper, N., Gilliver, P., Taylor, N., Mitchel, J., Birch, L., Woodhead, J., Blackwell, G., & Hamlin, M. (2014). Current understanding in climbing psychophysiology research. Sports Technology, 7(3–4), 108–119.

Greenglass, E. R. (2002). Proactive coping and quality of life management. In E. Frydenberg (Ed.), Beyond coping: Meeting goals, visions, and challenges (pp. 37–62). Oxford University Press.

Greenglass, E., Schwarzer, R., Jakubiec, D., Fiksenbaum, L., & Taubert, S. (1999, July 12–14). The Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI): A multidimensional research instrument. Paper presented at the 20th International Conference of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society (STAR), Cracow, Poland.

Hainline, B., Turner, J. A., Caneiro, J. P., Stewart, M., & Moseley, G. L. (2017). Pain in elite athletes—neurophysiological, biomechanical and psychosocial considerations: a narrative review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 51(17), 1259–1264

Hill, B. J. (1995). A guide to adventure travel. Parks and Recreation, 30(9), 56–65.

Jones, M., Meijen, C., McCarthy, P. J., & Sheffield, D. (2009). A Theory of challenge and threat states in athletes. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2(2), 161–180.

Juczyński, Z. (2000). Poczucie własnej skuteczności – teoria i pomiar [Self-efficacy—theory and measurement]. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, 4, 11–24.

Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E., & Thoresen, C. J. (2002). Are measures of self-esteem, neuroticism, locus of control, and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core construct? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 693–710.

Jensen, M. P., Turner, J. A., Romano, J. M., & Strom, S. E. (1995). The Chronic Pain Coping Inventory: Development and preliminary validation. Pain, 60, 203–216.

Kontos, A. P. (2004). Perceived risk, risk taking, estimation of ability and injury among adolescent sport participants. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 29, 447–455.

Kraaimaat, F., & Evers, A. (2003). Pain-coping strategies in chronic pain patients: Psychometric characteristics of the Pain-Coping Inventory (PCI). International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 10, 343–363.

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. Guilford Press.

Lazarus, R. S. (2000). How emotions influence performance in competitive sports. The Sport Psychologist, 14, 229–252.

Ledesma, R. D., & Valero-Mora, P. (2007). Determining the number of actors to retain in EFA: An easy-to-use computer program for carrying out Parallel Analysis. Practical Assessment, 12(2), 1–11.

Lind, E., Welch, A., & Ekkekakis, P. (2009). Do “mind over muscle” strategies work? Examining the effects of attentional association and dissociation on exertional, affective and physiological responses to exercise. Sports Medicine, 39(9), 743–764.

Lipscombe, N. (1995). Appropriate adventure for the aged. Australian Parks and Recreation, 31(2), 41–45.

Luthans, F., Youssef, C. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2007). Psychological capital. Oxford University Press.

Lyng, S. (2005). Edgework and the risk-taking experience. In S. Lyng (Ed.), Edgework: The sociology of risk-taking (pp. 17–49). Routledge.

Mcdougall, J. (2018). Examination conditioned pain modulation in non-elite and elite rock climbers: The influence of pain coping strategies and cognitive appraisal (Unpublished manuscript). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. https://doi.org/10.14288/1.0371156

Millington, K., Locke, T., & Locke, A. (2001). Occasional studies: adventure travel. Travel and Tourism Analyst, 4, 65–97.

Morrison, A. B, & Schöffl, V. R. (2007). Review of the physiological responses to rock climbing in young climbers. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 41, 852–861.

Mortlock, C. (1984). The adventure alternative. Cicerone Press.

Nicholls, A., Polman, R., Levy, A., Taylor, J., & Cobley, S. (2007). Stressors, coping, and coping effectiveness: Gender, type of sport, and skill differences. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25(13), 1521–1530.

Pasikowski, T. Sęk, H., Greenglass, E., & Taubert, S. (2002). Proactive Coping Inventory—Polish adaptation. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 33(1), 41–46.

Pijpers, J., Oudejans, R., Holsheimer, F., & Bakker, F. (2003). Anxiety–performance relationships in climbing: A process-oriented approach. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 283–304.

Pomfret, G., & Bramwell, B. (2016). The characteristics and motivational decisions of outdoor adventure tourists: A review and analysis. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(14), 1447–1478.

Priest, S. (1990). The adventure experience paradigm. In J. C. Miles & S. Priest (Eds.), Adventure recreation (pp. 157–162). State College, PA: Venture Publishing.

Puchan, H. (2005). Living “extreme”: Adventure sports, media and commercialization. Journal of Communication Management, 9(2), 171–178.

Robinson, D. W. (1985). Stress seeking: Selected behavioural characteristics of elite rock climbers. Journal of Sport Psychology, 7, 400–404.

Rosenstiel, A. K., & Keefe, F. J. (1983). The use of cognitive coping strategies in chronic low back pain patients: Relationship to patient characteristics and current adjustment. Pain, 17(1), 33–44.

Rossi, B., & Ceratti, L. (1993). The sensation seeking in mountain athletes as assessed by Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 24, 417–431.

Ruedl, G., Abart, M., Ledochowski, L., Burtscher, M., & Kopp, M. (2012). Self reported risk taking and risk compensation in skiers and snowboarders are associated with sensation seeking. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 48, 292–296.

Sanchez, X., Boschker, M., & Llewellyn, D. (2010). Pre-performance psychological states and performance in an elite climbing competition. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 20, 356–363.

Schöffl, V., Morrison, A. B., Schwarz, U., Schöffl, I., & Küpper, T. (2010). Evaluation of injury and fatality risk in rock and ice climbing. Sports Medicine, 40, 657–679.

Schwarzer, R. (2001). Stress, resources and proactive coping. Applied Psychology, 50, 400–407.

Shabani, S., Dehghani, M., Hedayati, M., & Rezaei, O. (2011). Relationship of serum serotonin and salivary cortisol with sensation seeking. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 81, 225–229.

Skinner, E. A., Edge, K., Altman, J., & Sherwood, H. (2003). Searching for the structure of coping: A review and critique of category systems for classifying ways of coping. Journal of Psychological Bulletin, 129, 216–269.

Skinner, E. A. & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). The development of coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 119–144.

Skinner, E. A. & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2009). Challenges to the developmental study of coping. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 124, 5–17.

Slanger, E., & Rudestam, K. (1997). Motivation and disinhibition in high risk sports: Sensation seeking and self-efficacy. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 355–374.

Strelau, J. (2013). Psychologia temperamentu [Psychology of temperament]. PWN.

Szczepaniak, P., Strelau, J., & Wrześniewski, K. (1996). Diagnoza stylów radzenia sobie ze stresem za pomocą polskiej wersji kwestionariusza CISS Endlera i Parkera. [Assessment of stress-coping styles using Endler and Parker’s CISS: Polish version]. Przegląd Psychologiczny, 39(1), 187–210.

Tricker, R. (2000). Painkilling drugs in collegiate athletics: Knowledge, attitudes, and use of student athletes. Journal of Drug Education, 30(3), 313–324.

Wiese-Bjornstal, D. (2010). Psychology and socioculture affect injury risk, response, and recovery in high-intensity athletes: A consensus statement. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 20(S2), 103–111.

Williams, A., & Craig, K. (2016). Updating the definition of pain. Pain, 157(11), 2420–2423.

Woodman, T., Hardy, L., Barlow, M., & Le Scanff, C. (2010). Motives for prolonged engagement high-risk sports: An agentic emotion regulation perspective. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 345–352.

Wu, G.-J. (2013). The dark side of adventure: Exploring the stress-coping strategies of mountaineers’ significant others regarding high altitude mountaineering expeditions. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 8(4), 449–465.

Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. Cambridge University Press.

Zuckerman, M. (2015). Models of adults temperament. In M. Zentner & ‎R. L. Shiner (Eds.), Handbook of Temperament (pp. 41–66). Guilford Press.