example, although some athletes tend to perceive all ailments pessimistically, others (e.g.,
Roy Keane, Robert Pires) may view the period of enforced rest that follows an injury as
being an opportunity for self-discovery. Similarly, stage theories tend to ignore the
mediating influence of situational factors (Brewer, 200 Ib). Thus the degree of emotional
upset caused by an athletic injury appears to depend on such factors as the type of ailment
(with acute injuries eliciting greater emotional reactions than chronic injuries) and the
stage in the sporting season in which the damage occurs. Clearly, the pattern of emotional
reactions displayed by injured athletes varies as a function of individual differences and
situational factors. Finally, grief stages models lack a clear specification of the possible
theoretical mechanisms by which psychological factors influence athletes’ reactions to
injury. In summary, psychological research has not supported all of the major tenets of
grief reaction stage theories. Therefore, Udry and Andersen (2002) concluded that it is
“difficult to make firm conclusions regarding the utility” (p. 539) of these models. Not
surprisingly, alternative approaches have been postulated to account for the way in which
athletes react to injury. Perhaps the most popular and influential of these approaches are
the cognitive appraisal models developed by Brewer (1994) and Wiese-Bjornstal, Smith,
Shaffer and Morrey (1998). It is to these models that we now turn.
Cognitive appraisal models of injury reactionCognitive appraisal models of injury reaction (also known as “stress and coping”
approaches; Udry and Andersen, 2002) are based on the idea that people’s emotional and
behavioural reactions to any type of physical trauma are determined principally by their
interpretation (or “appraisal”) of it (Lazarus, 1993). But what exactly does the term
appraisal mean? For psychologists, it refers to a subjective interpretation of an event or
situation. For example, any everyday experience can be appraised either as a threat or as
a challenge. Thus some people get annoyed while queueing in a bank whereas others
appear to be immune to feelings of frustration in this situation. This happens, according
to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), because of individual differences in cognitive appraisal.
Specifically, if people perceive every second spent in a queue as a waste of time, then
they are likely to feel stressed by the experience. But if they appraise the same situation
more constructively (e.g., “waiting in this queue will give me a chance to slow down,
catch my breath and plan the rest of my day”), it will not be as stressful to them. So, for
cognitive theorists, stress is transactional because it involves two processes: the tendency
for people to perceive a situation as a threat to their well-being and also the feeling that
they will not be able to cope with its demands. Based on this analysis, two types of
appraisal processes may be identified. One the one hand, “primary appraisal” occurs
when one decides that because a given situation poses a threat, it requires a coping
response. On the other hand, “secondary appraisal” occurs when one asks oneself
whether or not one has the ability to cope with the situation in question. In any case,
when people perceive an event as a challenge to their abilities, and are confident that they
have the sufficient mental resources to overcome it, they tend to react positively to the
situation in question.
In general, injured athletes’ appraisal processes are believed to be determined by a
number of factors. These factors include the amount of previous experience the athlete
has had of similar injuries, the adequacy of his or her coping resources, the degree of
Helping athletes to cope with injury: from theory to practice 255