Performance slumps in sport: Personal resources and perceived stress

Athletes from a variety of team and individual sports (N = 591) provided ba ckground information about themselves and a recent slump in sporting perfor mance they had experienced. The slump-specific information included percept ions of loss, threat, challenge, and stress, as well as dimensional ratings for the primary cause of the slump. A split-sample procedure was used to s pecific and cross validate multivariate relationships among potential predi ctor variables and stress ratings. Results indicated that five variables ma de significant contributions to the prediction of stress ratings: perceived loss, perceived threat, perceived challenge, net causal control, and marit al status (R =.77, adjusted R-2 =.58). Findings are discussed primarily in tel ms of Hobfoll's (1988, 1989) conservation of resources model, which emp hasizes the role of loss perceptions in the stress process.