Game outcome and elite Japanese women's field hockey player's experience of emotions and stress

Objectives: To measure the effects of game outcome on pleasant and unpleasant emotions and stress during elite-level competition. Design: Quasi-experimental repeated pre- and post-game measurement in a field setting. Methods: Participants were 16 members of the Japanese women’s field hockey team playing a world cup preliminary qualifying tournament in Trinidad. Players completed the Tension and Effort Stress Inventory (TESI), a measure of emotion and stress, at the seven games of the tournament (five wins, two losses). Results: The pattern of emotions after game 1 (a loss) were in sharp contrast to the results from the other six games (five wins, one loss). When compared to other games, significant increases in anxiety, humiliation and excitement pre- to post-game 1 were found, as were significantly higher scores in sullenness and lower scores in relaxation post-game 1. No significant decreases in external tension stress and somatic tension and effort stress pre- to post-game 1 were found. For the other games, athletes were significantly more relaxed and excited after games, increasing with each game in the tournament. Also, the unpleasant emotion and stress results, associated with game 1, significantly diminished as the team progressed to the tournament final. There was no evidence for a simple win/loss difference on post-game emotions and stress. Conclusions: The relationship between game outcome and emotional response is not straightforward. Other factors, such as cognition, may also play a role.