A Comparative Study of Mental Toughness between Male and Female Players of Kanpur

Mental Toughness is the ability of an individual to deal efficiently with stresses, pressures and challenges and to perform the best of their capacities irrespective of the circumstances in which they find themselves struggled. In sport there is an increasing awareness of how important psychological factors are within athletic performance and it is now being recognized that physical talent is not the only component which leads to success. Players, whether male or female, are constantly under stress and anxiety while competing in tournaments, they struggle for each point and often put their best efforts to get success. In sports competition, there are situations that require the utmost concentration to face difficult circumstances. It is always questionable that which players, male or female, possess better mental toughness. In the scientific and sport community, mental toughness is viewed as one of the most important attributes that will lead to a successful athletic performance. At the highest level it is often the mental game which separates the elite performers from the good performers. In sport there has been very little scientific attention focusing around mental toughness and this is seen as very surprising considering that it became necessary to compare mental toughness between male and female players.

To compare the mental toughness, 30 male players and 30 female players of Kanpur District, who have participated at Nationals (open or school) and Inter-University were randomly selected to serve as subjects. For the collection of data Mental Toughness Questionnaire prepared by Allen Goldberg was administered. The questionnaire was comprised of 60 statements based on handling pressure (20 questions), concentration (17 questions), mental rebounding (14 questions) and winning attitude (9 questions). Each statement has two possible responses i.e. true or false. For the analysis of data, collected by administering the questionnaire to all the subjects, t-test was employed at 0.05 level of significance.

RESULTS :

To find out the significant differences in mental toughness between male and female players t-test was employed at 0.05 level of significance. The statistical analysis of data pertaining to the mental toughness is given below:

From above table it is clearly evident that there was significant difference in mental toughness between the male and female players of Kanpur District, since the calculated‗t‘ value 03.49 was found to be more than tabulated value 2.00 at 0.05 level. Therefore, data presents sufficient confirmation to ensure that the mean mental toughness of the male players is significantly higher than the mean mental toughness of the female players of Kanpur District.

Results of the study prove that there was significant difference in mental toughness between male and female players because the mean mental toughness of male players is significantly higher than the mean mental toughness of the female players of Kanpur District. This may be obtained due to the reality that the male players get themselves occupied more to prepare mentally for various competitions and participate in competition which develops confidence and toughness in them and it also helps them to tackle the pressure of the competition. Therefore, it is necessary to train female players more than the male players enhance the mental toughness. These conclusions may be employed to develop the various training plans.

Terry Orlick, (1986). Psychology of Sports, Champaign, I.L.: Leisure Press. www.essex.ac.uk/bs/pgrad/sships/2007/Fletcher.doc/ Mr. David Fletcher9 undertook the study of Organizational stress and/or mental toughness in elite sport (2006). Alan Goldberg, (November - December, 1995). ―Just How Tough Are You?‖ Swimming Technique, 20. Geet Sethi, (November 15, 1997). ―Killer Instinct: A Much Misunderstood Term‖ The Sport Star, 66. ―Comparative Study Of Mental Toughness Between The Players Of Tae-kwon-Do And Cricket‖ Indian Streams Research Journal, Volume-3, Issue-11, Dec-2013, ISSN 2230-7850.

Assistant Professor, Brahmaart P.G. College, Mandhana, Kanpur, (UP)