Michel Nicolas

University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France · Sport Sciences Department

This study examined the relationship between perceived coaching behaviors, coping strategies during a sport competition, and sport achievement. A prospective design was used in which 80 athletes from individual sports completed measures of perceived coaching behaviors two days before a competition (Time 1) and measures of coping and sport achieveme...

Background: Psychological stress and recovery monitoring is a key issue for increasing athletes' health, well-being, and performance. This multi-study report examined changes and the dose-response relationships between recovery-stress psychological states, training load (TL), heart rate (HR), heart rate recovery (HRR), and heart rate variability (...

BACKGROUND AND METHODS: Life in isolated and confined environments (ICEs) is subject to important constraints which can generate psychosociologically impaired outcomes. This study investigated psychological, social, occupational, and cultural variables which are among the most important determinants in adaptation to a one-year wintering in Antarcti...

This research examined the time courses of emotions in sport settings (anxiety, dejection, anger, happiness, excitement) experienced by mountain ultra-marathon (MUM) runners within the month following a demanding MUM race and the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in these time courses. A six-wave one-month longitudinal design was used with one me...

The study aimed to identify group cohesion profiles in athletes and examine whether athletes from distinct profiles significantly differed in affects and coping in competition. A total of 296 competitive athletes participated in the study and completed a series of self-report questionnaires in a temporal design with different measurement points. Th...

This study examined the effect of an asynchronous heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BFBasync) protocol on national-level adolescent swimmers' cognitive appraisals and recovery-stress states during a six-week ecological training period. A polynomial mixed-effects multilevel regression analysis approach was used with 27 adolescent national-leve...

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of online emotional competencies (EC) training, and more specifically the relationships between adherence, confidence, and alliance and the effects of mental training on EC. A longitudinal four-wave measurement design (pre-intervention, post-knowledge development, post-abilities development, and post-dis...

The study is aimed to explore the relationship between coach-athlete relationship, precompetitive coping and affective states,satisfaction and attainment of achievement goals. A sample of567 French athletes (Mage= 22.10;SD= 5.66; 377 men and 190women) involved in 75 training groups participated in the studyand completed a series of self-report meas...

This study aimed to design and evaluate an emotional intelligence (EI) training program for adolescents involved in intensive sport training centers. A total of 31 young elite table-tennis players received EI training through six sessions and a recall period across a competitive season. The athletes completed (1) a self-reported questionnaire at th...

The aim of this study was to realize a French adaptation of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), and to further examine the BFI-2’s convergent and discriminant validity via a comparison with the NEO-PI-3 and with the syndromes assessed by the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R). Bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling almost fully supported the BFI...

This study investigated the dynamics of stress and recovery responses and their relationships with perceived environmental mastery during one-year of polar winter-over expeditioners in distinct environmental conditions of sub-Antarctic and Antarctic polar station. The findings of multilevel analysis suggested that the several stress and recovery re...

The aim of this research was to investigate the role of trait emotional intelligence (EI) in recovery stress states in a mountain ultra-marathon (MUM) race. Recovery stress states of 13 finishers were assessed before, during, and immediately after the end of an extreme MUM, whereas emotional intelligence was assessed 2 days before the MUM race. Tem...

Présentation de la thèse lors du séminaire doctoral du laboratoire Psy-DREPI (Dijon, France, 28 juin)

Florent Manaudou, an Olympic Gold medal Swimmer, claimed that "the limitations of physical performance are the level of mental toughness and the ability to cope with his emotions and environment". To date, psychological skills training (PST) in performance is well documented and shows its usefulness. However, it must be acknowledged that an overwhe...

The study aimed to identify coach behavior profiles and explore whether athletes from distinct profiles significantly differed on coping and affects experienced within 2 hr before the competition and during the competition (measuring them 2 hr after the competition). A sample of 306 French athletes (M age = 22.24; SD = 4.91; 194 men and 112 women)...

We examined whether a perceived coach's leadership predicted group cohesion and whether group cohesion predicted intensity and direction of positive affect and negative affect experienced during competition, sport satisfaction and goal attainment following the completion of a sports competition. A sample of 296 competitive athletes (Mage = 21.61; s...

Life in Isolated and Confined Extreme (ICE) environments poses important challenges and constraints and therefore to human adaptation and more particularly to the processes of psychological adaptation (PAP). Contemporary models view psychological adaptation as a dynamic process of constant adjustment to the environment, encompassing changes in phys...

Objectives: This research explored whether several subgroups of athletes representing distinct emotional trajectories emerged from the latent class growth analyses (LCGA) for a wide variety of pleasant and unpleasant sport emotions (anger, anxiety, dejection, excitement, happiness). Another aim was to explore whether athletes belonging to distinct...

Grounded within a multidimensional and multilevel approach, the aim of this study was to investigate the time course of Psychological Adaptation Process (PAP) dimensions (social, emotional, occupational, and physical) during one-year polar winter-overs in Subantarctic and Antarctic stations. The effects of perceived control (PC) at the start of pol...

During the last decades, rugby union focused on players' physical development as the main way of performance optimization. Consequently, a tremendous amount of research attention has been devoted to better understanding the main training parameters, neglecting however to study the effects of physical conditioning on group dynamics. In the present r...

L’humain dans l’espace doit non seulement s’adapter à des conditions de vie inhabituelles et contraignantes mais également travailler et partager un espace exiguë et inconfortable. Ces situations qualifiées d’extrêmes impliquent une série d’adaptation dont dépend non seulement le succès de la mission mais également le bien-être et la cohésion de l...

Working in extreme environments requires a wide range of cognitive, psychological and social competences. Antarctica represents one of the most challenging habitats to work in due to its aridity, extremely cold weather, and isolated conditions. This study aimed to assess mood variations and coping strategies, as well as their possible modulation by...

We examined whether coach leadership behaviours predicted the intensity and direction of positive and negative affects experiencing during competition controlling for affects experienced within two hours before competition. A total of 296 athletes (33% female and 67% male; Mage = 21.61; SD = 6.32) voluntarily participated in the study. A partial le...

This study aimed to evaluate whether similar associations between indexes derived from heart rate variability (HRV) analyses and training load (TL) could be obtained by using the commonly used Pearson correlation technique and the repeated measures correlation (rmcorr). Fourteen well-trained swimmers (18.5 ± 1.6 years) participated. The training pe...

The data presented in this article relate to the research article entitled “assessing psychological adaptation during polar winter-overs: The isolated and confined environments questionnaire (ICE-Q)” [1]. These data were acquired in order to develop a standardized instrument – the ICE-Q – designed to assess psychological adaptation within isolated,...

Injury and fatigue prevention is a key meaning in athletes’ monitoring and carrier organization. Adolescent athletes and especially women adolescent team sport players are an at-risk population, particularly exposed to overuse injuries. Recent literature highlights the importance of psychological attributes (trait anxiety, perceived mastery climate...

Ancrée dans la théorie relationnelle, cognitive, motivationnelle des émotions (Lazarus, 1999), cette étude avait pour objectif d'explorer les relations à travers le temps (au cours d’une saison de compétition) entre les évaluations cognitives, les émotions de tous les jours dans un environnement de compétition et les stratégies de régulation émotio...

Given the positive influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on sports performance, particular attention should be paid on how to improve it. Following promising results, previous research concluding that it was possible to improve EI via specific training programs also raised considerable debates. Indeed, previous EI training programs were very tim...

Grounded in Lazarus's (1999) cognitive motivational relational theory of emotions, this study aimed to explore longitudinal relationships between appraisals, everyday emotions related to the competitive environment and emotional regulation strategies during a competitive season. Forty adolescent soccer players (Mage = 15.8) involved in an intensive...

Objectives: The aims of this research were: (a) to provide the best way to represent the factor structure of sport emotion questionnaire-direction (SEQ-D) scores using advanced techniques recently introduced in the literature, and (b) to examine differential item functioning (DIF) as a function of sex on the SEQ-D responses. Method: A total of 363...

Confinement experiments are essential to prepare long-term space exploration. The 180-day Chinese CELSS (Controlled Ecological Life Support System) study is unique in its design, including a closed-loop system and mid-mission simulation of Mars-like day–night cycle of 24 h 40 min for 36 days (days 72–108). Our aim was to study physiological and psy...

La préparation physique (PP) peut s'envisager sous différentes formes : dissociée, associée ou intégrée. Chacune d'entre elles présentant des avantages et des inconvénients d'un point de vue physiologique, le but de cette étude a été d'explorer le lien entre forme de PP et relations interpersonnelles à travers le vécu émotionnel des participants. D...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to: (a) examine the time courses of runners’ recovery-stress states within the month following a demanding Mountain Ultra-Marathon (MUM) race; and (b) explore the role of primary and secondary appraisals in these trajectories. Design: A seven-wave one-month longitudinal design was used with one measurement poin...

We examined whether perceived control predict recovery and stress states during an ecological tapering period of 2-weeks that led to the target competition of the year for 39 expert adolescent swimmers (13 women and 26 men; Mage = 17.56; SD = 2.09 years). Swimmers completed quantitative measures (RESTQ-36-R-Sport; Perceived control; A-SAGS) before...

In the field of emotion–performance relationship in achievement situations, the social dimensions of emotions have been understudied. Thus, recent advances highlighted the need to explore identity processes to know whether group belonging may influence individuals’ emotions and performance when they are involved in a task-group. The current study i...

Background: Psychological stress and recovery monitoring is a key issue for increasing athletes' health, well-being, and performance. This multi-study report examined changes and the dose-response relationships between recovery-stress psychological states, training load (TL), heart rate (HR), heart rate recovery (HRR), and heart rate variability (H...

The psychological impacts of extreme situations are a great concern and have become an issue of major importance for performance, well-being and the outcome of missions (Kanas, 1998). A situation is considered as extreme when an individual is subjected to exceptional physical or psychosocial circumstances demanding adaptive responses which could ov...

The study examined whether the quality of the coach-athlete relationship associates with a range of behaviours coaches manifest in training and competitions. The Coach Behaviour Scale for Sport (CBS-S) and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q) measured coaching behaviours and relationships respectively. As neither of these scales wa...

The purpose of this study was to identify the potentially distinct defense profiles of athletes in order to provide insight into the complex associations that can exist between defenses and other important variables tied to performance in sports (e.g., coping, perceived stress and control) and to further our understanding of the complexity of the a...

The psychological impacts of extreme situations are a great concern and have become an issue of major importance for performance, well-being and the outcome of missions (Kanas, 1998). A situation is considered as extreme when an individual is subjected to exceptional physical or psychosocial circumstances demanding adaptive responses which could ov...

The aim of this study was to investigate evolutions in recovery-stress states during a mountain-ultra-marathon (MUM) race. Results highlights that recovery state decreased from the first part on the race. Comparatively to the baseline measure (before the MUM race) stress state increased after the running accomplishment. Furthermore, emotional intel...

This study examined the trajectories of emotional states and their within-person synergies with perceived stress and recovery during a 4-month training period preceding the French swimming championships. A Multilevel Growth Curve Analysis approach was used with 16 high level swimmers. Five waves of assessments of emotional states, perceived stress...

This study aimed to examine how coping and defenses are related over time, using a two-wave cross-lagged panel design. Coping and defenses were assessed before and after a sport competition in a sample of 296 competitive athletes. Partial least squares path modeling results showed that (a) pre-competitive mature defenses predicted increases in the...

The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate a measure of defense mechanisms: the short Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-26). A total of 296 competitive athletes completed the DSQ-26 and other self-report questionnaires both before and after a sport competition. Results of Principal Component Analyses (PCA) on the pre-competitive da...

Former athletic employees receive a better wage when hired than other employees because recruiters associate positive values to athletic participation. Whereas athletes are considered as more cooperative than others, this assumption lacks empirical support. We implement a laboratory experiment in order to examine whether athletes (i.e., individuals...

Previous studies exploring athletes’ affective experience within competition neglected the multivariate nature of the construct of affective states. The purposes of the current study were to: (a) identify affective profiles before and during competition; (b) examine if key theoretical covariates from a transactional perspective of affective states...

Que serait le sport sans les émotions, sans la joie ressentie lors d’une victoire historique, sans l’anxiété ressentie juste avant le début d’une compétition majeure, sans l’espoir naissant à la faveur d’une remontée plutôt inattendue, ou encore sans la colère déclenchée par une faute grossière à un moment critique ? Le sport amputé de sa composant...

Les conditions de vie en environnement extrême constituent un champ d’investigation et une situation expérimentale in situ pour l’étude des processus d’adaptation psychologique (PAP). Le rôle des émotions dans l’adaptation à ces situations contraignantes (i.e., compétitions sportives) ou extrêmes (i.e., stations polaires, missions spatiales réelles...

A clear disconnection exists between theory and research which postulates that affect and coping are embodied in a process that unfolds over time and are likely to be characterised by change and co-occurrence in changes. The use of a two-wave cross-lagged panel investigation within a naturalistic achievement-related demanding situation allowed us t...

Previous studies neglected the multivariate nature of the coping construct. The purposes of the current study were to: (a) identify coping profiles within a naturalistic achievement-related demanding situation (sport competition) characterized by an anticipatory and a performance stage; (b) examine the issue of consistency or change of coping profi...

Background & Study Aim: Previous studies in adults and endurance athletes have evaluated whether heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to monitor training load. We aimed to answer to question: whether HRV monitoring is useful in elite adolescent athletes practicing a sport with a major anaerobic component, i.e. judo. Material & Methods: Eleven y...

Increasing evidence indicates that chronic stress, such as social isolation, plays an important role in the development of a variety of psychiatric and somatic disorders. Meanwhile, chronic stress imposed by prolonged isolation and confinement in the spacecraft is also one of the major concerns for the health of future interplanetary space traveler...

Cette étude repose sur un suivi pluridisciplinaire des états de stress et de récupération chez des nageurs Elite. Elle a porté sur 14 nageurs de niveau national à international. Les tests ont été réalisés en début (T1) et fin (T2) de la période d’affûtage conduisant les nageurs aux Championnats de France estivaux. La charge d’entrainement a été mes...

A Systematic Review of Programmes that Promote Adherence to Regular Physical Activity in the Elderly : The Role of Affective Barriers Research examining relevant variables that influence adherence to programmes designed to increase regular physical activity in the elderly is abundant. The purpose of the present review was to determine whether affec...

The present study analysed the time course of the psychological process of stress and recovery in six healthy male volunteers during the Mars 105 experimentation, a 105-day ground-based space analogue. The multidimensional assessment of stress and recovery responses showed that stress levels decreased significantly throughout the 105-day isolated a...

This study investigated time patterns and the relationships between perceived stress, recovery, control, attention lapses, and defense mechanisms (DM) during a 12-month wintering in Concordia polar station with an international crew of 14 volunteers. This ICE (Isolated, Confined, Extreme) environment induced some stress, mainly in the social dimens...

This study aimed to identify the type and effectiveness of emotional regulation strategies used by table tennis players to manage their emotions experienced during competition. Using a naturalistic video-assisted approach, thirty interviews were conducted with 11 national table tennis players. Ten emotions were identified in the participants’ trans...

Psychological and physiological stress and recovery monitoring is a key issue for coaches and athletes’ well-being and performance. This study aimed to examine changes and the dose-response relationship between recovery-stress psychological states (RESTQ-36-R-Sport questionnaire), training load and the status of the autonomic nervous system (heart...