Differential Magnitude of Resilience between Emotional Intelligence and Life Satisfaction in Mountain Sports Athletes

Abstract

The field of mountain sports has its own characteristics, different from other sports modalities. Emotional intelligence and resilience not only refer to the adaptive capacity that can be developed after an adverse experience, but can also be factors that positively affect sporting performance in extreme conditions. In this study, 4818 athletes from the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing participated; 2696 were men (67.1%) and 1322 were women (32.9%), with a mean age of 49.42 years (±11.9). The Resilience Scale (RS-14), Wong Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS-S) and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used. The aim was to provide evidence for the potential for resilience (personal competence and acceptance of self and life) among EI and life satisfaction in mountain and climbing athletes. The results showed that the coefficients of determination of personal competence [(Q2 = 0.286); (R2 = 0.578)], acceptance of self [(Q2 = 0.310); (R2 = 0.554)] and life satisfaction [(Q2 = 0.299); (R2 = 0.421)] for the estimation of the measurement model indicated a good model fit. In the future, it would be necessary to carry out specific studies discriminating by sport modality and methods for this area, with a large number of athletes and disciplines, as well as evaluating its possible applications for the improvement of emotional factors.