Mental toughness among national soccer officials: A comparative analysis

Abstract

Few studies have looked at the psychological mechanisms that govern soccer officials’ performance to this point. The main goal of the study is to identify age-related changes in mental toughness among officials. Sixty active national officials were chosen at random from the All-India Football Federation’s national officials’ roster (AIFF). Group A is 25-30 years old, with a mean and SD of 27.4±3.39 (lower age group); Group B is 31-35 years old, with a mean and SD of 31.8±1.28 (middle age group); and Group C is 36-40 years old, with a mean and SD of 37.6±1.98 (higher age group). The Psychological Performance Inventory (PPI), developed by James E. Loehr in 1982, was chosen as the research’s test item. This instrument evaluates seven aspects of mental toughness, including self-confidence, negative energy control, attention control, visualisation and imagery control, motivation, positive energy control, and attitude control. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), with a significance threshold of 0.05, was used as the statistical approach to assess the study’s hypothesis. The finding of the research paper shows no significant difference among various groups.