Adaptation to stress in football athletes: The importance of cognitive appraisal.

This study analysed the adaptation of football athletes to competitive stressors regarding the upcoming match. For that, the study adopted a cross-sectional methodology using a critical incident approach. The participants were 352 young male football athletes, aged between 15 and 19 years (M = 16.91, SD = 0.99), who were competing in the national football championship. The results indicated that cognitive appraisal partially mediated the relationship between competitive stressors and emotions: athletes who perceived stressors as a challenge, tended to feel more control over the situation and more resourceful (coping perception), leading to a more positive emotional experience, while those perceiving the stressors as a threat were more prone to experience less control and more negative emotions. This mediation model was moderated by athletes' competitive level (U17 or U19), as the role of challenge perception was more pronounced in the U19 team, while the relationship between threat perception and less control was only observed for the U17 team. In sum, the data reveals the importance of cognitive appraisal in young football athletes' adaptation to competitive stressors, bolstering the theoretical models in this area and the importance of psychologists to consider these variables during intervention, particularly cognitive appraisal.

Work-family conflicts, cognitive appraisal, and burnout: Testing the mediation effect with structural equation modelling.

Work-family conflict constitutes an important source of occupational stress predicting teachers' burnout, and cognitive variables have shown to be core structures in explaining human adaptation to stress. Nevertheless, the role of cognitive appraisal needs to be fully analysed to comprehend how it can mediate the relationship between stress and burnout. In order to understand the potential mediation of cognitive appraisal in the relationship between stress and burnout, we adopted conceptual models of stress that highlighted the value of cognitive appraisal on positive and negative reactions to work demands. Also, we analysed the potential moderation of sex and age in the relationship between work-family conflict, cognitive appraisal, and burnout due to inconsistent findings on how these personal variables can interfere on these relations. In this study, we used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the mediating of cognitive appraisal in the relationship between work-family conflicts and burnout. A survey with measures of work-family conflicts, cognitive appraisal, and burnout was administered to the participants consisting of 438 Portuguese teachers from kindergarten through high school, aged between 28 and 67 years (M = 46.85; SD = 7.88), 304 of whom were females (69.41%). The results confirmed that cognitive appraisal partially mediated the relationship between work-family conflict and burnout. The mediation effect of cognitive appraisal on the relationship between work-family conflict and burnout was invariant regardless of teachers' sex or age. In sum, cognitive appraisal should be considered in order to understand teachers' adaptation to work.

A Multigroup Analysis of the Effect of Cognitive Appraisal on Nurses' Psychological Distress.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive appraisal constitutes an important mechanism in the process of human adaptation to work environment and occupational stress. In this domain, nursing professionals are one of the occupational groups most affected by job stress, suffering high levels of psychological distress. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to analyze the moderator effect of shift work and the type of job contract on the relationship between work cognitive appraisal and nurses' psychological distress and to explore the interaction effect of the two moderator variables on that relationship. METHODS: A sample comprised of 2,310 Portuguese registered nurses completed a sociodemographic and professional questionnaire: the Primary and Secondary Cognitive Appraisal Scale and the General Health Questionnaire-12. Data were analyzed through structural equation modeling and multigroup analyses considering the following groups: (a) "shift" versus "nonshift work"; (b) "precarious job contract" versus "nonprecarious job contract"; and (c) "shift and precarious" versus "shift and nonprecarious" versus "nonshift and precarious" versus "nonshift and nonprecarious." RESULTS: Data confirmed the invariance for the measurement model, but the structural model presented a significantly worse adjustment for all grouping variables, showing the moderator effect of shift work and job contract and of their interaction. Difference tests in structural path coefficients revealed that shift work moderated the relationship between challenge perception and psychological distress-which was stronger for shift work nurses-and that a higher threat perception was related to greater psychological distress, especially in nurses with a precarious job contract. Among the four categories of interaction between job contract and shift work, cognitive appraisal became central in predicting nurses' mental health, explaining more variance in the group that did shift work and had a nonprecarious job contract. DISCUSSION: The study results highlight the need to develop occupational health intervention programs to promote nurses' mental health, focusing on reducing work perception as a threat and on making nurses' jobs more challenging and controllable.

Drive for Muscularity and Disordered Eating Behavior in Males: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Appraisal.

There is mixed evidence for the relationship between increased levels of the drive for muscularity (DFM) and disordered eating behavior in males, therefore this study analysed the relationship between DFM and disordered eating behavior, giving particular relevance to the patterns of cognitive appraisal. A convenience sample was recruited from fitness centres and sport clubs with 308 participants, all males. Losing muscular mass represented a negative experience for participants, promoting a higher perception of threat appraisal. In addition, losing muscular mass was related to more muscularity-oriented behaviors and disordered eating behavior. Cognitive appraisal mediates the relation between DFM and disordered eating behavior. The results highlight the role of cognitive appraisal in DFM and disordered eating behavior in males in sport contexts.