PSYCHOLOGICAL SKILLS - A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION

The purpose of this investigation was to study the relationship between selected independent variables (sport, nationality and gender) and psychological skills of American and Chinese collegiate level athletes. The Psychological Skills Inventory for Sports (PSIS) was administered to a fixed sample of collegiate athletes from the United States and the People's Republic of China. Subjects for this research were 350 American (USA) and Chinese collegiate athletes participating in the sports of track and field, basketball, volleyball or swimming. A nationality by sport by gender (2 x 4 x 2) MANOVA resulted in significant main effects for nationality, sport, gender, and for the interactions between nationality and sport and between sport and gender. Follow-up univariate ANOVA's and post-hoc comparisons (LSD) were utilized to clarify significant relationships. Overall, male athletes were observed to display higher psychological skills scores than female athletes. Chinese athletes displayed higher psychological skills scores than their American counterparts in confidence, motivation and total psychological skill.