Relações entre autoeficácia, autoestima e bem-estar subjetivo em atletas competitivos

Abstract

Positive Psychology is a movement that emerged with the aim of highlighting the individual's strengths, virtues, and qualities. In the sports context, it can be applied by focusing on the development of the individual and the strengthening of their positive qualities to improve sports performance and quality of life. Competitive sports today impose significant demands for high performance, creating challenging working conditions. Therefore, it is essential for athletes to develop certain strengths, virtues, and positive qualities, such as those studied by Positive Psychology, like self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being. The present master's dissertation aimed to investigate the academic production on self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being in competitive athletes; and to evaluate the levels of these constructs in these athletes, also verifying whether there is an association of these variables with each other and with sociodemographic and contextual variables. To achieve these objectives, the dissertation comprised four distinct studies. Study 1 aimed to characterize studies on self-efficacy in competitive athletes through an integrative literature review. The main themes addressed by the literature were the relationship between self-efficacy and sports performance, repertoire of skills in sports, use of self-talk, sports injuries, and other psychological variables. Self-efficacy was linked to athletes' sports performance and psychological well-being. Study 2 aimed to present, through an integrative literature review, what has been produced in the scientific literature about self-esteem in competitive athletes. The results indicated that self-esteem could be influenced by the demands and pressures experienced by athletes, their skin color, sex, physical disability, and the type of sport practiced. Study 3 aimed to characterize scientific studies on subjective well-being in competitive athletes through an integrative literature review. Subjective well-being was related to injury prevention, emotion management, and social support. Study 4 aimed to investigate the levels of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being of competitive athletes, as well as the associations between these variables and with other sociodemographic and contextual variables. A total of 95 Brazilian competitive athletes participated, including 83 men and 12 women, with an average age of 25.88 years (standard deviation = 9.3). They practiced the following sports: badminton, basketball, soccer, futsal, handball, jiu-jitsu, judo, mountain biking, swimming, table tennis, and volleyball. The results showed that most athletes presented levels of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and positive affects equal to or higher than the population average, and levels of negative affects lower than the population average. Significant statistical associations were found between self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being. Education level was also statistically associated with self-esteem and positive affects. The dissertation's findings indicate that specific interventions and psychological training programs may be essential to assess and strengthen these variables and improve athletes' quality of life, something that future researchers in the field can develop. The need for more studies in the Brazilian context was also pointed out to fill gaps in the literature. Future investigations can also seek samples from different cultural and sports contexts and use different methodologies, such as qualitative and longitudinal ones. The novelty of this dissertation was highlighted by integrating the studied constructs within the context of competitive sports. The dissertation's findings reinforced the ongoing importance of support in sports for competitive athletes, highlighting the significant role of research in producing knowledge and translating its findings into concrete practices to improve athletes' health, quality of life, and performance.