Passion, Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Management in Athletes: A Correlational Study

Abstract

The emerging athletes often faced significant pressure to maintain optimum levels of mental skills, which affected their performance. The study aimed to find out the difference between state- and national-level athletes in passion, emotional intelligence, and conflict management. The research was conducted on 184 university athletes, aged 18–25, from diverse sporting disciplines, including state- and national-level athletes. The Passion Scale, Sports Emotional Intelligence Test, and Thomas–Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument were utilised as measurement tools. The mean, standard deviation, and t-value were computed. The results of the study indicated that there were significant relationships between certain components of passion, emotional intelligence, and conflict management styles. The findings also revealed significant differences between state- and national-level athletes in obsessive passion, passion criteria, compromising conflict management style, and emotional intelligence. National-level athletes were found to have higher emotional intelligence, obsessive passion, and passion criteria, whereas state-level athletes reported higher use of the compromising style of conflict management.