Mental Toughness and Success in Sport: A Review and Prospect

INTRODUCTION Pivotal to athletic performance is the ability to more maintain desired athletic performance levels during particularly critical periods of competition [1], such as during pressurised situations that typically evoke elevated levels of anxiety (e.g., penalty kicks) or when exposed to unexpected adversities (e.g., unfavourable umpire calls on crucial points) [2, 3]. These kinds of situations become markedly important when athletes, who are separated by marginal physical and technical differences, are engaged in closely contested matches, games, or races [4]. It is within these competitive conditions, in particular, that athletes’ responses define their degree of success (or lack thereof); responses that are largely dependent on athletes’ psychological attributes [5]. One of these attributes appears to be mental toughness (MT), which has often been classified as a critical success factor due to the role it plays in fostering adaptive responses to positively and negatively construed pressures, situations, and events [6 8]. However, as scholars have intensified