Katherine Tamminen

University of Toronto | U of T · Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education

Crises are prevalent and constitute challenges all around and also within sports, although limited research attention has been paid to crises in sports so far. The manifold faces of crises in sports draw through all macro, meso, or micro levels with the general understanding of a crisis being that, regardless of the outcome, the present experience...

Defining the scope of a “crisis” in sport is complex, as crises can refer to individual or team performance problems, significant events such as injuries or retirement, or broader issues such as doping, abuse, or the covid-19 pandemic. Given this complexity, determining the best coping or emotion regulation strategies to cope with a crisis in sport...

Given the documented benefits associated with organized sport and thus the assumption that youth who leave sport are losing out on developmental benefits, dropout has been predominantly framed as a crisis to be solved. Throughout this paper we aimed to challenge the overarching narrative of youth dropout from organized sport as a negative outcome o...

This study employed Rasch analyses to validate a novel measure of sport experience: the Sport Experience Measure: Children and Youth (SEM:CY). Analyses were applied to self-reported data of n = 503 young people (age 9–18 years, M = 12.91, 50% female) in Canada who were engaging in sport during the previous 12 months. The revised measure, consisting...

The purpose of this study was to examine the motivational antecedents, emotional correlates, and psychosocial costs of experiencing tilt in gamers’ daily lives using ecological momentary assessment.

Social relationships become crucial in times of stress and adversity. While research on interpersonal coping has acknowledged human interdependency and is gaining momentum in sport psychology, a lack of conceptual clarity and divergence in nomenclature is currently hindering the field to move forward. Thus, the aim of this scoping review was to map...

Spectators can engage in high levels of verbal aggression toward youth hockey officials. Often, the perpetrators of this aggression are the parents. Our aim was to test the motivational factors involved in explaining why hockey parents sometimes take things too far and engage in verbally aggressive behavior toward officials. We reasoned that verbal...

Quality sport experiences may be a key underlying mechanism through which continued sport participation may facilitate positive youth development. However, what constitutes a quality sport experience for youth is poorly understood due to a lack of comprehensiveness among existing measures. This study aimed to identify the salient factors that const...

The psychosocial development of young people in sports settings continues to be a popular area of study. Researchers examining youth athletes may draw on developmental theories from broader fields of psychology when choosing which psychosocial outcomes to study. However, it is currently unclear which theories inform youth sport research, and how th...

While athletes can experience poor mental health, researchers often focuses on the personal factors that impact an athlete’s mental health. Such a narrow focus neglects the broader contextual factors, such as involvement within sport systems, that can impact athlete mental health. Purpose: The purpose of this project was to understand how elite spo...

Researchers have documented how athletes navigate transitions within high-performance sport; however, little is known about the transitions that youth athletes face in their athletic development. When studying youth sport populations, it is imperative to consider how sports experiences coincide with children’s changing psychosocial abilities. The p...

Playing videogames can be an effective way to improve low moods, but overreliance on them as a regulatory mechanism leads to maladaptive outcomes. This study recruited participants from online gaming communities (n=595) to examine the role of emotion regulation flexibility as a buffer against dysregulated videogame outcomes.

Mental ill health is an important health condition affecting young people globally. Approximately half of all common mental disorders emerge before the age of 18, including mood, anxiety, eating, substance use and neurodevelopmental disorders. Yet an estimated 58% of mental disorders in adolescents go undetected and untreated with barriers to acces...

Youth homelessness is at an all-time high in Canada and is a complex social issue. The vast majority of interventions and research focuses on addressing the immediate needs of people experiencing homelessness, such as housing, harm reduction (due to substance use, violence, and crime) food security, and illness. The important role that recreation,...

Receiving social support is often related to adaptive outcomes for athletes, such as reduced stress and greater wellbeing. Nevertheless, in some cases, receiving social support may not reduce, or even heighten, stress reactions. Thus, research is needed to better understand the complex dynamics of social support processes among athletes. Though sub...

There has recently been a surge in sport psychology research examining various aspects of the interpersonal and social processes related to emotions and emotion regulation. The purpose of this study was to review the literature related to the interpersonal experience, expression, and regulation of emotions in sport, in order to provide a comprehens...

Competition is often a profoundly motivated and emotional experience, and if left unregulated, the resulting emotions can differently impact individuals’ abilities to perform. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between motives for playing videogames, emotion dysregulation, and tilt frequency amongst gamers. Both higher motiv...

Playing sports can be filled with emotions. Athletes might feel nervous about try-outs or before a big competition, upset about losing or performing poorly, or excited and happy after a big win or a major accomplishment. To perform well in sport, athletes can learn to manage their emotions and cope with stress. However, some emotion regulation and...

In this article we elaborate on a narrative of forward momentum in sport drawing on multiple interviews (total = 37 interviews) over six months with thirteen current and former competitive athletes (9 women, 4 men) from various sports and different stages of their sport careers. Using Dialogical Narrative Analysis to guide the analysis, the results...

Emotion regulation is important for individual well-being and performance across sport and non-sport contexts. However, studies focusing specifically on youth athletes’ emotion regulation are comparatively rare. This study examined how youth athletes’ engagement in two common emotion regulation strategies, namely cognitive reappraisal and expressiv...

Athletes’ emotional responses to injuries may include feeling sad, angry, anxious, frustrated, helpless, irritated, and confused about their identity as athletes. Emotions are central in athletes’ sport injury experiences, yet most therapeutic approaches described in the sport psychology literature are grounded in cognitive-behavioural traditions a...

This study explored how athletes’ symptoms of mental disorders changed over the course of pandemic year. Predictors of baseline levels and changes in symptoms of mental disorders were also examined. Surveys were completed four times throughout a year by Canadian athletes training for the 2020 Olympics/Paralympics (ntime1 = 186, ntime2 = 142, ntime3...

Sport organizations have been noted as pivotal to the success or failure of athletes, and sport environments can impact the well-being and development of athletes. In this study, the authors explored stakeholders’ perceptions of how high-performance sport organizations support athlete development. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 18 st...

There has been a growing interest in the application of sport psychology insights to eSports settings (Leis et al., 2021). Preliminary videogame research has found that emotions influence people’s experience of videogames (Behnke et al., 2021). Although there is evidence that sport-specific factors differentially influence athletes’ emotions (e.g.,...

Objective Parents’ behaviours have important implications for youth athletes’ sport experiences, and researchers have begun to examine parental communication with youth athletes. However, there is a lack of information about the range of behaviours in parent-child interactions, and much of the existing research has focused on parental verbal commen...

Social media and electronic communication perpetuate adolescents’ lives and have the potential to shape the nature of adolescent athletes’ experiences and interactions with members of their sports teams. However, there is no research to date that has examined adolescent female athletes’ use of social media and electronic communication. Athletes, pa...

For individuals with an intellectual disability (ID), emerging adulthood (18 to 25 years) may be a disruptive time with an abrupt ending to programming and services after adolescence. This study critically explores the social environment and experiences of individuals involved in a Special Olympics (SO) paddling program for emerging adult athletes...

Individuals who have an intellectual and/or developmental disability (IDD) may benefit physically and psychosocially from engaging in recreation. This qualitative description study focused on the Inclusion Resource Team programme, an inclusive municipal recreation programme for adults who have an IDD, and explored elements that may lead to optimal...

Objectives There exists a wealth of evidence that athletes must regulate their emotions for optimal performance and wellbeing. In addition to athletes’ attempts to regulate their own emotions, they may also attempt to regulate each other’s emotions (interpersonal emotion regulation). Though self- and interpersonal emotion regulation likely co-occur...

Introduction Researchers have increasingly focused on the mental health of elite athletes. However, there remains a paucity of research on the mental health of elite Canadian athletes, and the prevalence of mental disorders among this population is unknown. Purpose This study evaluated the prevalence of symptoms of mental health disorders, specifi...

The aim of this research was to explore the experiences of youth athletes and their parents in the lead up to a sporting transition into the development years of competitive sport. Parents (n = 6) and children (n = 5) were interviewed from sports teams in the Greater Toronto Area. Case study methodology and phenomenological analysis were used to ex...

Abstract: The mental health (MH) of elite Canadian athletes is understudied, yet a prospective understanding of athletes’ MH could inform periodized interventions designed to target athlete MH at different times in a competitive season. The purpose of this project was to identify the prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and eating disorde...

There is currently little guidance that exists for researchers in the sport and exercise sciences on open qualitative research practices. The purpose of paper is to provide researchers with guidance regarding the considerations necessary for making informed decisions about engaging in open research practices within qualitative inquiry. The guidance...

Mental detachment, which includes both cognitive and emotional detachment, refers to an athlete’s sense of being away from the cognitive and emotional demands of sport and is considered an important recovery experience for athletes. However, mental detachment appears to be impaired by high levels of physical fatigue following training or competitio...

Methodological coherence has been offered as an approach to strengthening qualitative inquiry by ensuring that the elements of qualitative research are appropriately aligned. This study presents a focused mapping review and synthesis of the methodological coherence of qualitative sport psychology research published in five peer-reviewed journals ov...

Preparation strategies (i.e., pre-game rituals, pre-performance routines) have long been a topic of study in sport psychology. However, previous research has focused on closed-skill tasks and employed methodologies that make it difficult to capture athletes’ perspectives of these behaviours. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions...

Despite a vast body of research on youth sport withdrawal, our understanding of youth athletes’ withdrawal experiences is limited by an overemphasis on descriptive-quantitative methodological approaches (Crane & Temple, 2015) and models of withdrawal that are not grounded in sport stakeholders’ experiences (Gould, 1987; Lindner et al., 1991). The p...

Athletes often upregulate and downregulate pleasant or unpleasant emotions to feel or perform better (i.e., for hedonic or instrumental reasons). In addition to athletes regulating their own emotions, interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) also occurs in sports, wherein individuals attempt to regulate the emotions of others. Although previous resea...

In this epilogue to the special issue of Journal of Applied Sport Psychology on mental health in sport, we draw together just a few of the lessons that can be learned from the six papers presented within. Specifically, we draw attention to three issues that reflect the state of field: models of athlete mental health care; the role of recreational s...

Welcome to this special issue of Journal of Applied Sport Psychology on mental health in sport. The special issue comes at a particularly pertinent time as the study of mental health in sport gathers significant momentum. In this introduction – and throughout the special issue—we aim to provide robust, thought-provoking research and commentary on a...

The purpose of this study was to utilize a behaviour observation coding system to evaluate athletes’ real-time interactions among emerging adults with disabilities in recreational sport programs, and to qualitatively explore how peers influenced those observed behaviours and transitions into adult sport. Expanding on a validated coach behavioural c...

Psychological stress is ubiquitous in sport. Unsurprisingly then, research that examines the antecedents, correlates, consequences, and interventions pertaining to psychological stress in sport is sizable and broad. With this Research Topic we aimed to capture the breadth and depth of work taking place around the theme of adaptation to psychologica...

Background: Children and youth who meet the physical activity, sedentary, and sleep behaviour recommendations in the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines are more likely to have desirable physical and psychosocial health outcomes. Yet, few children and youth actually meet the recommendations. The family is a key source of influence that can affect...

Models of positive youth development suggest that athletes may be influenced by parent education programmes; however, there is little research examining the impact of such programmes on athlete outcomes. This study examined the impact of the Respect in Sport Parent Program on athlete outcomes among minor hockey players over three years. This study...

Background: Sport organizations have consistently been noted to be pivotal to the success and failure of their athletes, with a substantial body of research pointing to factors, such as team culture, that support and hinder performance and wellbeing in performance environments (Wagstaff, 2017; 2019). Purpose: The purpose of this project was to expl...

Coaches regularly provide social support to athletes; however, few coach education programs have addressed this topic. Therefore, this project sought to develop a social support webinar for coaches. Content was based on findings from two research studies exploring support provision to athletes. The webinar was pilot tested and then delivered online...

Student-athletes are suggested to be an at-risk population for experiencing psychological distress, and coaches have been identified as support providers for distressed athletes. However, little is known about the interactions between student-athletes and their coaches when athletes disclose psychological distress. Therefore, the purpose of this re...

The purpose of this project was to examine the experiences of participants enrolled in a fee assistance program for recreation in Mississauga, Canada. Adults living in low income (N = 24) who were registered with ActiveAssist engaged in individual semi-structured interviews and data were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Benefits associated...

This study explored perfectionistic athletes’ perspectives on and experiences of success and failure in sport through a three-phase mixed methods design. In Phase 1, 122 intercollegiate varsity athletes responded to the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale 2 (Gotwals & Dunn, 2010). Ten athletes were then purposively sampled who, based on the...

This study examined a project that delivered social work services to homeless individuals. A mixed-methods case study was conducted using quantitative and qualitative data from 93 library employees and the project’s Homelessness Prevention Outreach Worker (HPOW). There was an increase in the number of clients accessing community supports during the...

Parents can contribute to their children’s motivation and competence in sport through supportive behaviors; however, limited research has demonstrated how parents might learn to engage in these supportive behaviors with their child. The purpose of this research was to examine whether increasing parents’ awareness of their communication would influe...

Purpose: Recreational sport programs are a critical but overlooked pathway for enhancing social participation of emerging adults with disabilities. Specifically, the experiences of recreational sport program members is important for continued community engagement among emerging adults. To address this gap, this scoping review examined the published...

Elite athletes may be as likely as members of the general population to experience mental disorders (Gorczynski, Coyle, & Gibson, 2017; Moesch et al., 2018), and there has recently been a surge of research examining mental health among athletes (Rice et al., 2016). This paper provides an overview and commentary of the literature on the mental healt...

Amid the increasing use of qualitative methods in the field of sport psychology, a number of researchers have initiated discussions about issues of rigour and quality in qualitative inquiry. Methodological coherence has been offered as an approach to strengthening qualitative inquiry by ensuring that the elements of qualitative research are appropr...

Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to social interactions that are intended to improve or worsen the emotions of others (Niven et al., 2011), and IER has been associated with emotional and motivational outcomes for athletes (Tamminen et al., 2016). Qualitative findings suggest IER among teammates is associated with performance, and that...

Researchers have examined the impact of coaches’ emotional expressions and emotional intelligence on athlete outcomes (Allan, V., & Côté, J. (2016). A cross-sectional analysis of coaches’ observed emotion-behavior profiles and adolescent athletes’ self-reported developmental outcomes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology,28 , 321–337; Thelwell, R.C....

The consequences of sport-related concussions are a growing concern for athletes, their families, and the scientific community. The overwhelming majority of the published research has employed quantitative methods to examine various aspects of sport-related concussions. Qualitative approaches offer novel methods of inquiry to facilitate our underst...

Many sports teams engage in collective rituals ( e.g. , the New Zealand All Blacks’ haka). While the concept has been studied extensively in other fields ( e.g. , social psychology and cultural anthropology), literature on collective rituals specific to sport is limited. Leveraging theoretical positions and empirical findings from across the human...

Different types of evidence can be used to inform organisational decision making. The purpose of this study was to identify types of evidence used in sport organisations. Data were collected via interviews with 60 Canadian Provincial Sport Organisation representatives from five provinces. A qualitative description approach was used and data were su...

The ability of young athletes to effectively cope with stressors is crucial for sustained sport enjoyment and participation, and parents play a key role in providing coping support. However, there is limited evidence for coping interventions directed at both youth athletes and their parents. The purpose of this study was to implement a coping works...

Support providers may experience positive and negative outcomes associated with supporting others. However, there is a lack of research on support provision to elite athletes and the views of athletes' support providers. This study addressed this gap by exploring the experiences of providing and receiving support between female Olympians and their...

When sport participation reaches competitive levels, it can become entangled with stressors such as injury, performance pressures, high internal and external expectations, and difficult retirement transitions. Retirement can leave individuals vulnerable to experiencing mental health challenges, particularly when an athlete has developed a strong at...

Objectives The overall purpose of this study was to examine Canadian Provincial Sport Organization representatives' research priorities in order to provide directions for future research and knowledge translation initiatives in youth sport. Design Qualitative description methodology. Method Interviews were conducted with 60 representatives of Can...

Organizational stressors may be important factors influencing athletes’ sport experiences. In this study we examined organizational stressors as ‘background variables’ (Gump & Matthews, 1999) that may impact athletes’ perceptions of support and appraisals of competitive stressors. Perceptions of available esteem support, organizational stressors, c...

Background: Despite the proliferation of studies examining youth sport participation, there are significant gaps in knowledge regarding the impact of youth sport participation on health and development. These gaps are not new, but have persisted due to limitations with how sport participation is measured. Much of the research to date has measured...

Purpose: Conversations occurring within the car ride home may shed light on parental socialization among adolescent athletes, as conversations are viewed as sites to socialize participants as members of the group or family. Parent-athlete communication also occurs within a broader social context of youth sport, where narratives regarding performanc...

This study was guided by self-determination theory to explore the sport experiences of youth with a physical disability and the role of peers within this context. Interviews were conducted with eight youths using a relational mapping technique and analyzed using a deductive thematic approach. Sport peers were broadly defined by the youth as individ...

Open science practices including open access (OA) publication, open methods, study preregistration, and open data are gaining acceptance across diverse fields of research, These practices are promoted as strategies to improve the reproducibility of research findings and the replicability of studies to accumulate knowledge and advance science. Howev...

Generating a common understanding of knowledge translation among stakeholders is a key issue for increasing the use of research evidence in practice. The purpose of this article is to create a better understanding of knowledge translation in youth sport by providing a framework and guidelines for facilitating knowledge translation. We present PYDSp...

This study used an instrumental case study approach to investigate the ways teammates within a female varsity volleyball team regulated each other's emotions, the factors that were perceived to influence interpersonal emotion regulation, and athletes' preferences for regulating their own and others' emotions. Fourteen athletes participated in semi-...

The purpose of this study was to explore factors associated with the use of research evidence in Canadian National Sport Organisations (NSOs). Data were collected via individual semi-structured interviews with 21 representatives from Canadian NSOs. A qualitative description approach was used. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to an...

Although correlational studies indicate that team attributes are related to athletes' precompetitive psychological states, it is unknown how team members experience these relationships. The present study's purpose was to investigate athletes' perceptions of precompetitive team influence. Consequently, we worked from a constructivist realist positio...

Conversations occurring within the car ride home may shed light on parental socialization among adolescent athletes, as conversations are viewed as sites to socialize participants as members of the group or family. Parent–athlete communication also occurs within a broader social context of youth sport, where narratives regarding performance and par...

There is currently a lack of theoretically based research regarding positive youth development (PYD) and youth in recreational sport settings, including residential summer sport camps. This qualitative research study explored the ways in which positive developmental experiences are facilitated at a residential summer sport camp. Using a case study...

The overall purpose of this study was to create a model of positive youth development (PYD) through sport grounded in the extant qualitative literature. More specifically, the first objective was to review and evaluate qualitative studies of PYD in sport. The second objective was to analyze and synthesize findings from these studies. Following reco...

Researchers have studied athletic identity (AI) and explored the impact that having a strong AI can have on an athlete. Additionally, researchers have explored the maintenance of AI, but only among very specific athletic populations. Little is known about how different athletes manage their AI at various stages in their career (i.e., still competin...