Emotion regulation in sport contexts

This chapter explores emotion regulation in the context of sport, emphasizing its significance in this performance-driven sector. Recognized as an “emotional cauldron”, elite sports settings combine physical exertion, intense media scrutiny, and high stakes, creating a unique context for emotional experiences. In this chapter, we take stock of the available research on intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation among athletes, coaches, and sport staff. We note the shifting focus on emotion regulation in sport from the examination of pre-performance anxiety to the recent “interpersonal turn” whereby researchers view emotions as inherently social and performative, and have increasingly focused on interpersonal emotion regulation, the emotional labor of science and medicine practitioners and coaches, and collective team collapse through the lens of emotional contagion. We consider methodological challenges in emotion regulation research in sport, note some novel ways sport science methods can advance emotion regulation research, and point to the value of holistic, multi-systemic approaches to emotion regulation through the integration of psychobiological and social perspectives.