Coping, optimism and satisfaction with life among spanish and polish football players: a preliminary study

Abstract

This paper highlights the interrelations among coping strategies, dispositional optimism and wellbeing in a sample of 61 football players of two nationalities, Polish and Spanish players, in order to identify cultural differences. The Spanish players achieved significantly higher scores than the Poles in the use of emotion-related coping strategies (F = 12.919; p =.001), with the obtainment of a relevant effect size (> .130) and high power (.942). In addition, the Polish players were found to be significantly more optimistic than the Spanish (F = 5.296; p = .025). The results are discussed in connection with theoretical optimism models (Scheier and Carver, 1985) and coping strategies (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), highlighting the role of cultural differences.