Mindfulness and psychological inflexibility in portuguese adolescent athletes: a novel framework for understanding the link between shame and sports anxiety
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This study aimed to test a comprehensive model in adolescent athletes that explores the effect of shame on sports anxiety and whether psychological inflexibility and mindfulness influence this association. The sample study included 210 young Portuguese athletes from different competitive sports. The path analysis results confirmed the adequacy of the proposed model, which explained 49% of the variance in sports anxiety. Results demonstrated that athletes who experienced higher levels of shame tended to exhibit elevated levels of sports anxiety through lower levels of mindfulness and higher psychological inflexibility. The study offers new empirical data that may be relevant for clinical and sport psychology practitioners. These findings seem to underline the importance of addressing shame and, consequently, sports anxiety in adolescent athletes by developing greater psychological flexibility and, inherently, more mindfulness skills among adolescent athletes who are in a phase of their lives where sport can play a crucial role.
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Mindfulness increases athletes' experiences of flow.
“research has shown that mindfulness increases athletes' experiences of flow (Chen and Meggs, 2021; De Oliveira et al., 2024).”
From Mindfulness and self-rated performance among novice athletes in China: a sequential mediating role of flow and cognitive anxiety (2025) · cites this paper as De Oliveira et al., 2024
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Cited by
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Peng, J., Jing, L., Wang, P., & Wang, H. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1436321 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- de Oliveira, S. M. S., Cunha, M. I. V. A., Rosado, A. F. B., Saraiva, M., & Ferreira, C. R. C.
- Affiliations
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, CINEICC—Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
- University of Coimbra (PT)
- FMH—Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology
- Publisher
- Human Kinetics
- Published
- 2025-06-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 215-232
- ISSN
- 1932-9261 (ISSN-L)
- 1932-927X
- OpenAlex
- W4398795426
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 75
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2
- FWCI
- 3.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/143410/2019)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychological Treatments and Assessments
- Keywords
- shame, competitive anxiety, mindfulness, psychological inflexibility, youth athletes, psychological flexibility, sport psychology intervention
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