Psychological Characteristics of Free Diving Athletes, A Comparative Study
Authors: Neşe Alkan, Tolga Akış
DOI / Source: https://ijhss.thebrpi.org/journals/Vol_3_No_15_August_2013/18.pdf
Date: August 2013
Reading level: Beginner
Why This Matters for Freedivers
A lot of freediving progress is psychological: staying calm, trusting your plan, and not panicking when sensations rise. This study suggests that freedivers, compared with non-athletes, tend to show a more “stable calm” profile—lower momentary anxiety and stress, less negative mood, and higher internal control and self-confident coping. It’s not proof that freediving causes this, but it’s a useful mirror for what good training often builds.
Synopsis
This paper asks a simple question that doesn’t get studied often: do freedivers differ psychologically from non-athletes, and if so, how?
The authors compared 36 freediving athletes with 41 non-athletes of similar age and gender. They measured a mix of “in the moment” psychological states (situational factors) and more stable traits (stable factors). Specifically, they assessed: - Stress symptoms (general stress level), - State anxiety (how anxious you feel right now), - Trait anxiety (your usual baseline anxiety), - Positive and negative affect (your typical mood tendencies), - Ways of coping with stress (self-confident vs helpless/submissive styles, etc.), - Locus of control (whether you believe outcomes are mostly shaped by your own actions vs external forces like luck or fate).
The results were pretty consistent with what many coaches see in the wild: - Freedivers scored lower on state anxiety than non-athletes. - They also showed lower stress symptoms and lower negative affect (less “bad mood” tendency). - They scored higher on internal locus of control (a stronger belief that “my actions matter”) and higher on self-confident coping style.
Interestingly, they did not differ significantly on everything. For example, trait anxiety wasn’t significantly different between groups, and positive affect wasn’t significantly higher in the freedivers. That’s an important nuance: the biggest differences were in situational calm (state anxiety, stress symptoms, negative affect) and self-belief / coping style rather than in a blanket “freedivers are happier people” story.
One odd finding the authors discuss is that freedivers also scored relatively high on a “belief in luck” subscale, and in freedivers that “luck belief” correlated positively with internal control. The authors suggest a practical interpretation: experienced athletes learn that outcomes are mostly under their control—but they also learn that in sport, conditions and randomness still exist. So “I control what I can” and “luck exists” may coexist in a realistic way.
Because this is a cross-sectional comparison (two groups measured once), it can’t prove that freediving causes these psychological differences. It could also be that people with this profile are drawn to freediving and stick with it. Either way, the profile that shows up—lower state anxiety, lower stress, less negative affect, more internal control, more self-confident coping—maps closely onto the mental skills freedivers try to build.
Abstract
This study investigated situational and stable psychological characteristics of free diving athletes by comparing 36 free diving athletes with 41 non-athletes. Measures included stress level, state and trait anxiety, positive and negative affectivity, ways of coping with stress, and locus of control. Free diving athletes scored significantly lower on state anxiety, stress level, and negative affect than non-athletes. They also scored significantly higher on internal locus of control and self-confident coping style. The findings suggest that free diving athletes demonstrate a more positive psychological profile on several situational and stable characteristics, although causal conclusions cannot be drawn from the comparative design.