A three‐dimensional crisis‐related analysis of perceived coach's behavior in competition

Perceived coach's behavior in competition is analyzed in terms of a coach's positive, negative, or lack of response, which expectedly or unexpectedly follows a player's successful or unsuccessful action or is independent of player's action. The perceived contribution of these variables to extreme psychological arousal states (crisis, noncrisis) was investigated. Thirty‐seven elite ball‐game players estimated the occurrence probability of all Bayesian combinations among these variables under crisis and noncrisis conditions. Under crisis, a negative response, an unsuccessful action and unexpected events were more probable, whereas under noncrisis, the reverse is true. The athlete's psychological state was related particularly to the coach's response. The results are discussed theoretically in reference to the crisis construct.