Mental toughness in sport

Athletes judged to be mentally tough perform better.

Interest on the topic ‘mental toughness in sport’ has increased exponentially since the early 2000s. Initially a term defined by anecdotal opinions of sport practitioners, today, there is general agreement that mental toughness is a construct reflective of a personal capacity to produce consistently high levels of performance despite everyday challenges and adversities. Different models of mental toughness exist, but tend to focus on the following key attributes: self-belief, emotional regulation, attention regulation, success mindset, context intelligence, optimistic thinking, and handling challenge. Research supports the view that athletes rated high in mental toughness generally participate at higher levels of competition, achieve more, and produce better performances. Key psychological mechanisms enabling mentally tough athletes to perform well under pressure include self-regulatory skills (e.g., mindfulness, self-forgiveness) and early threat detection. Traditional psychological skills training (e.g., visualisation, emotion control) and long-term culturally-informed approaches (e.g., stress-inoculation training, immersive contexts) have proven effective in developing mental toughness. There is, however, a potential dark side. Mental toughness is also associated with undesirable traits (e.g., psychoticism) and outcomes (e.g., burnout, injury).