"My Toughest Opponent Was Myself": Exploring Personality and Self-Compassion in Coping with Athlete Performance Slumps

Performance slumps are prolonged periods of unexplained underperformance that exceed an athlete’s typical fluctuations and affect over 50% of athletes, often leading to heightened stress, anger, and frustration. While the expression of slumps can vary depending on sport type (individual versus team) and personal factors, how athletes cope with them, and how these factors influence coping, remains less understood. This study aimed to explore the relationships between sport type, personal factors (personality and trait self-compassion) and coping strategies used during performance slumps. We recruited 184 athletes from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to complete a quantitative survey that assessed demographics, sport and slump history, personality, self-compassion, and coping. Linear regression analyses revealed significant relationships between personal factors and each category of coping strategy (problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance). Specifically, extraversion and conscientiousness predicted greater use of problem-focused strategies, while neuroticism and mindfulness predicted greater use of emotion-focused strategies. Additionally, agreeableness and conscientiousness predicted less use of avoidance strategies. These patterns are notable as problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies are generally considered more adaptive and linked to more positive outcomes, whereas avoidance strategies are typically viewed as more maladaptive and linked to more negative outcomes. Despite these results, there were no significant differences in coping strategy use between individual-sport athletes and team-sport athletes. Together, these findings underscore the importance of personality and self-compassion in coping with performance slumps, highlighting the need for future research to examine and develop support strategies tailored to individual differences.