CROSS-CULTURAL AND GENDER DIFFERENCES ON COPING STYLE IN SPORT

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the extent to which athlete s used similar coping strategies in response to various acute stressor s as a Junction of culture and gender College students from the southe ast U.S. (N = 296, M age = 20.7 yrs) and from New South Wales, Austral ia (N = 337, M age = 20.6 yrs) who were currently competing at various levels of sport participated in the study Males included 53% and 38% of the U.S. and Australian samples, respectively, while females compri sed 47% and 62% of these samples, respectively The inventory was compr ised of 134 items in which subjects indicated their <<usual>> response to each of seven acute stressors commonly experienced during the cont est. A multiple discriminant analysis was conducted using all 134 item s for the four country-gender groups. Differentiation between groups w as significant and accounted for 95% of the total dispersion. All pair wise comparisons between groups were also significant. The first funct ion was characterised by gender differences in stressors involving a c heating opponent, experiencing pain, and a <<bad>> call by the referee /umpire. The second function tended to reflect differences between cou ntries for these same acute same stressors, and for an additional acut e stressor called <<opponent's performance>>. Results highlighting cul tural differences are presented.