Team athletes showed better mental pre-competition readiness than individual athletes. The study examined 41 professionals.
A study by sports psychologist Dr. Marijana Mladenovič, published in the impact journal Sport Science and Health in December 2019, focused on the differences in the mental states of individual and team athletes.
She examined how both groups of athletes are mentally set up before a match or a competition. Whether they are showing signs of anxiety or are ready to direct their energy and attention to risk management and focus on their performance. The results indicated significant differences between athletes in individual and team sport, in favour of team sport athletes.
Individual athletes, elite shooters, show more cognitive anxiety, they are more prone to mental perception of pain, fear, and reliance on habits and automatism in competitions. Elite handball players showed signifi cantly higher values on scales of desirable mental state for training and competition.
The research involved 41 elite athletes of both genders (11 males and 30 females) aged 16 to 34. Out of these 24 were individual athletes were from a Serbian national team of shooters. 17 were team athletes from the Serbian national handball team.
Detailed information about the study can be found here: http://www.siz-au.com/en/journal/current