Abstract

Mentally tough athletes are conceptualized as being able to function effectively in stressful
situations and recent research has found small to moderate correlations between mental
toughness and coping. Despite this no research has thus far examined the possibility that
mentally tough athletes experience less intense emotions. This paper tested the relationship
between mental toughness and affect intensity to determine whether mentally tough athletes
generally experienced more or less intense emotions. A sample of 112 sport performers (55
men and 57 women) aged between 18 and 51 years (M = 29.3, s = 10.3) acted as
participants, and ranged from recreational to national level in a variety of sports. Mental
toughness and affect intensity were found to be unrelated. This is an important finding
because it suggests participants with high or low levels of mental toughness do not
characteristically experience more or less intense emotions. Thus there is no evidence to
suggest the ability of mentally tough athletes to remain relatively unaffected by pressure or
adversity is due to lower levels of affect intensity. More research is required to understand
how mentally tough athletes (in comparison to less tough athletes) maintain control and
high levels of performance in stressful circumstances.