{"id":23316,"date":"2024-02-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=23316"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:03","slug":"is-an-athlete-resilient-or-merely-coping-why-it-is-important-to-understand-the-role-of-psychological-resilience-in-sustained-success","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/is-an-athlete-resilient-or-merely-coping-why-it-is-important-to-understand-the-role-of-psychological-resilience-in-sustained-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Is an Athlete Resilient or Merely Coping? Why it Is Important to Understand the Role of Psychological Resilience in Sustained Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 5 Feb 2024 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Is an Athlete Resilient or Merely Coping? Why it Is Important to Understand the Role of Psychological Resilience in Sustained Success<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Human Performance<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/is-an-athlete-resilient-or-merely-coping-why-it-is-important-to-understand-the-role-of-psychological-resilience-in-sustained-success\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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Dr David Fletcher defines psychological resilience and outlines the influence of a person\u2019s individual qualities, their environment, and a challenge mindset.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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A Human Performance article brought you by our Main Partners<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By John Portch<\/h6>\n
Why is psychological resilience so important to sustained success?<\/h6>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re talking about any high performance environment, and particularly when we\u2019re talking about sustaining success over time, psychological resilience becomes increasingly important the higher you go,\u201d says Dr David Fletcher, the Professor of Human Performance & Health and Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Sport, Health and Well-Being, at Loughborough University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demands placed on individuals performing at the highest levels, whether in a sport, business, military context or any other domain, intensify and they come from an increasing number of sources. They also become more intense and more frequent,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that, individuals need to be able to cope with, adapt to, and just generally deal with stressors in a variety of different ways, which necessitates resilience. That\u2019s why resilience is particularly important for sustained success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher is talking to the Leaders Performance Institute for a series that looks at how psychological resilience can be developed<\/a>, how it can be influenced by an environment<\/a>, as well as any other considerations for coaches in sport.<\/p>\n

In the first part of our interview, he sets out what psychological resilience means to both scientists and applied practitioners how this has implications in sporting environments.<\/p>\n

What is psychological resilience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Fletcher:<\/strong> This is a contested area amongst academics. One definition is the ability to withstand and adapt to different types of stressors. \u2018Resilience\u2019 comes from the Latin verb \u2018resilire\u2019, which literally translates means \u2018to leap back\u2019. That\u2019s where the phrase \u2018bouncebackability\u2019 comes from too. \u2018Resilience\u2019 is where there\u2019s some form of disruption to somebody\u2019s functioning or their performance and they\u2019re able to regain their original levels of functioning and performance quite rapidly. Over time, the word and its usage have evolved. If we use sporting parlance, if the commentators on a football match describe a defence as being \u2018very resilient today\u2019 they\u2019re not talking about a team that\u2019s conceding goals. They\u2019re talking about a defence that\u2019s withstanding pressure and some modern scholars use it in that way too. That\u2019s a subtly different meaning to the original term.<\/p>\n

What are some of the implications for an academic and an applied practitioner such as you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

DF:<\/strong> When I\u2019m working, whether as an academic or an applied practitioner, I do make a distinction between what I call \u2018rebound resilience\u2019 and more \u2018robust resilience\u2019. I think that\u2019s important regardless of what context you\u2019re in because of the implications for research scientists. How do you define \u2018resilience\u2019? How do you then measure resilience and what are the key parameters you need to look at? Then, as an applied practitioner, a psychologist working with athletes, there will be a subtle difference in some of the skills you might try to teach an athlete or a team to either withstand stressors or if there\u2019s some kind of disruption and they need to be able to rebound quicker.<\/p>\n

Does this ever lead to some confusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

DF:<\/strong> It is important to be able to distinguish between \u2018resilience\u2019 and some related terms, perhaps the most notable of which is \u2018coping\u2019. To be clear, \u2018coping\u2019 is where there’s been disruption to somebody’s functioning but they’re unable to rebound as quickly and it takes them more time to deal with and work through some of the issues that arise under stress and pressure. That\u2019s where I see the distinction between something like resilience and coping; and again that\u2019s quite important for practitioners because the type of techniques that you\u2019d need to teach athletes to cope more effectively. With more prolonged stress it is, again, subtly different to some of the techniques that are important for resilience.<\/p>\n

How do you approach the development of psychological resilience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

DF:<\/strong> There is no magic bullet that is going to develop resilience \u2013 we need to look at it more holistically. To look at it from a bird\u2019s eye view, we need to focus on three main areas. The first area relates to personal qualities or the psychological makeup of an athlete or, if we’re talking about a team, it’s a little more around the psychosocial makeup of that team. In other words, the relationships that bind the team members together. Either way, that\u2019s the first thing that you would focus on.<\/p>\n

The second area that we look at tends to get neglected, in my opinion, is the environment in which an individual or a team is operating, their surrounding conditions, the facilities, the management, the teammates, all those types of things. We\u2019re talking about trying to optimise or manipulate that environment in such a way that it facilitates the development of resilience rather than either not stimulating that development of resilience at all or, the flip side of that, crushing individuals and putting them under too much pressure and, again, not leading to the development of resilience.<\/p>\n

The third area is the combined effect of personal qualities and the environment. What you\u2019re looking to develop is a challenge mindset. Individuals who step intro stressful situations and see it more as a challenge than a threat or, if we\u2019re talking about a team, rather than it being a mindset we\u2019re talking a bit more about a challenge culture in the dressing room. There’s like a collective confidence and efficacy in stressful situations. If you just focus on one of those areas and neglect the others, in my view, you\u2019re not going to develop resilience optimally.<\/p>\n

Read our interview in full:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part II – Psychological Resilience: Everyone Has a Trainability Bandwidth<\/a><\/p>\n

Part III – How the Training Environment Can Influence an Athlete\u2019s Resilience<\/a><\/p>\n

Part IV – Why the Way you Think Impacts your Resilience<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":23317,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[21],"pathway":[304],"topic":[325],"sport":[],"class_list":["post-23316","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-performance","pathway-technical-excellence","topic-psychology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs an Athlete Resilient or Merely Coping? 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