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The Relationship between Nightmare Experience and Athletes' Personality Traits and Anxiety
Youteng Gan1, Ruohang Wang1, Jiangang Li1
1School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China.
Objective:
Frequent nightmare behavior or deep nightmare experiences may harm the physical and mental health and performance of athletes. This study explores the nightmare experiences of athletes, and includes non-athletes with similar experiences for comparison.
Methods:
The Nightmare Experience Questionnaire (NEQ); Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire, Shortened Form (ZKA-PQ/SF); and Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) were used. The subjects were 187 athletes (mean age = 20.44 years, SD = 0.85; 91 females, 96 males) and 90 non-athletes (mean age = 20.34 years, SD = 1.65; 52 females, 38 males) who reported having nightmares.
Results:
A total of 87 athletes (46.5%) reported having nightmare experiences. The athlete nightmare group scored significantly higher in neuroticism than the non-nightmare group, and their anxiety scores were significantly higher than those of non-athletes, who scored higher in aggressiveness, neuroticism, and sensation seeking. Moreover, anxiety, neuroticism, and sensation seeking positively predicted athletes' nightmare experiences.
Conclusions:
Personality traits and anxiety levels can be effectively applied to predict athletes' nightmare experiences.
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