Description
Objectives: Deselection is a stressor athletes must cope with during their careers and refers to the elimination of an athlete from a team based on coach’s perceptions of their ability (Neely et al., 2016). Within dance, this means being eliminated from a performance audition. There is limited research exploring the impact of deselection on dancers, and because deselection is experienced frequently in dance, it is important dancers are aware of how to cope with the experience. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore female dancers’ experiences of emotions and coping following deselection.Design: Qualitative research methods to explore subjective experiences.
Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten female dancers (aged 20- 26) from multiple dance forms. Interviews were transcribed and analysed following interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Results: Results showed dancers experienced a rollercoaster of emotions following deselection including feeling disappointed, saddened, and deflated, resulting in dancers doubting their abilities and losing confidence. Furthermore, dancers experienced embarrassment when informing others of the outcome due to fearing others’ false judgements of them as a dancer, leading dancers to question their participation in dance, and sometimes dropping out. Some dancers did reappraise deselection as an opportunity for growth. Coping mechanisms identified to manage emotions included dance as therapy, social support, suppression of emotions, and avoidance of informing others about their deselection.
Conclusions: This study contributes to how sport psychologists work with dancers during these emotional challenges by suggesting implementation of reappraisal and emotional regulation coping interventions to attenuate the impacts of deselection.
| Period | 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology Annual Conference 2022 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | SwanseaShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |