Longitudinal trajectories of emotions among athletes in sports competitions: Does emotional intelligence matter?

Objectives: This research explored whether several subgroups of athletes representing distinct emotional trajectories could be shown to exist within the latent class growth analysis (LCGA) of pleasant and unpleasant sport emotions (anger, anxiety, dejection, excitement, happiness). A secondary aim was to explore whether athletes belonging to distinct emotional trajectories reported distinct scores of trait-emotional intelligence (EI) at time 1 (T1). Design: A longitudinal three-wave measurement design (beginning, middle, and end of a competitive season) was used in the present study. Method: A sample of 460 athletes completed the sport emotion questionnaire across three measurement times and the brief emotional intelligence scale at T1. Results: Results of LCGAs showed five trajectories for anger, anxiety and happiness, and six trajectories for dejection and excitement. Furthermore, athletes belonging to distinct (adaptive or maladaptive) trajectories reported significantly different scores of EI. Conclusions: LCGA results highlighted the athlete heterogeneity in longitudinal sport emotions. Higher scores of EI were reported by athletes belonging to adaptive emotional trajectories. These results could be used to help coaches and sport psychologists to identify athletes at risk of developing dysfunctional emotional trajectories across the competitive season. Moreover, this study suggested potential benefits of EI-centred interventions to help athletes to experience adaptive emotional trajectories. Finally, these results highlighted that heterogeneity in sport emotions must be accounted for in future research.