The relationship between self-handicapping and childhood trauma with the mediating role of feeling trapped in physical education students

Introduction

In recent years, self-handicapping has been the focus of many researchers as one of the obstacles to social progress. Berglas and Jones used this term to describe the process that maintains a person's self-esteem in the face of potential dangers. [1] According to them, self-handicapping includes any activity or set of functions that a person uses to increase opportunities to externalize failure or provide an excuse for failure and attribute success to internal factors. Self-handicapping behaviors include various actions and actions such as changing the amount or quality of academic or sports practice [2], creating physical problems or exaggerating about them such as illness or injury, or focusing on real or imagined defects. Many are of the opinion that the use of self-handicapping strategies leads to the motivation for self-preservation and self-improvement. [3] Self-handicapping tendencies should be evaluated in social situations because, basically, situations where high potential abilities are expected from a person, lead to doubt and uncertainty about success and results and consequences, and if a failure happens, they are considered a threat to self-esteem. [4] Basically, in these situations, evaluation criteria depend on the performance of others. Self-esteem is the basic element of people's identity, and every important task is considered a risk to maintain the survival and self-esteem of a person, and in case of failure, a person's self-perception is damaged. [5] Various factors can cause or even intensify self-handicapping. These factors have been investigated in various research. [6] We can refer to the research of Mehbod et al., in which he examined the relationship between meta cognition and self-handicapping through the mediation of general self-efficacy, and the results showed that metacognition through increasing self-efficacy The generality of students can have a negative effect on their self-handicapping. [7] In another study, Arab Mohebi et al. titled the relationship between self-handicapping and unstable self-esteem; Mediating role of fear of negative evaluation, they came to the conclusion that instability of self-respect affects self-handicapping to some extent through fear of negative evaluation [8].

One of the factors that seems to be related to self-handicapping is feeling trapped. Trouble can possibly be due to the internal causes of a person, such as inner thoughts and feelings, which is known as the feeling of being trapped. [9] In this way, the feeling of trouble is a forced stop of human activity that is constantly increasing. In fact, a person who feels trouble he experiences and thinks that his defensive behaviors are ineffective, so his priority is to escape from that environment, and he also imagines that all the available ways for him to win in that environment are closed, and the person's self-handicapping erupts inside him. 10. Entrapment or the feeling of being trapped is a special type of thinking and feeling that refers to a situation that tends to be avoided. It is defined as escaping from the situation. [12]

Another variable that seems to be related to self-handicapping is childhood trauma. Five different types of child abuse and neglect are commonly described as causing childhood trauma: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. These adverse experiences often arise from primary care relationships and parent-child relationships. However, they can be associated with adverse events from school or other settings outside the home. [17] General population estimates suggest that more than two-thirds of young people will experience at least one traumatic event by age 16. Such trauma has been reported to account for 45% of the population at risk for childhood-onset mental disorders and 32% for adolescent-onset mental disorders. [18] Childhood trauma is a known environmental stressor associated with illness. It is psychologically related and increases the risk of developing affective disorders and psychosis up to three times. [19].

Materials and Methods: This research was one of the basic and descriptive research - correlation and modeling of structural equations. The statistical population of the present study included all students of physical education at Azad University of Qom province who were studying in the academic year of 2023-24. The sample size in structural equations is determined based on the number of questions or items in the questionnaire, and its minimum number is 200. A sample of 200 people was considered, who were included in the research using the available sampling method. The entry criteria for physical education students of Qom Azad University will be an age range of 18 to 35 years, no disturbing psychological and medical problems, no drug use, no failure, and the exit criteria will be not having enough time, and incompletely filling out the research questionnaires. Ethical considerations of the research include providing written information about the research to the participants, assuring the people about respecting the confidentiality of the obtained information and using it only in research matters, voluntary participation in the study, not registering their names and surnames in order to comply with privacy and obtaining written consent from participants. Finally, the data was analyzed by correlation matrix method and structural equation modeling using spss 26 and pls3 software.

Self-handicapping questionnaires (SHS), Bernstein's childhood trauma (CTQ), Gilbert and Alan's feeling trapped (FTQ) were used to collect information from students, and all three questionnaires had valid validity and reliability. Cronbach's alpha in the mentioned questionnaires was reported as 0.85, 0.81, and 0.90 respectively. After the necessary coordination with the research vice-chancellor of the university, the research questionnaires were prepared and made available to the students. While explaining the objectives of the research and the need to have adequate time to answer the questions, they were asked to answer the questions honestly. Participation in the course was optional and students could withdraw at any stage. Physical education students in different semesters and undergraduate and graduate education levels were requested to participate in the research. No major problems that could seriously damage and distort the results of the primary research were reported during the research.

Results: First, the demographic characteristics of the research sample are reported. 110 participants were women and 90 were men. The average age was 23.14 and the standard deviation was 5.3. In the following, the descriptive indicators of the research variables are reported.

The relationships between research variables were investigated at the 95% and 99% confidence levels. It was observed that Self-handicapping has a positive and significant relationship with childhood trauma and feeling trapped. Also, the highest correlation was between the relationship between childhood trauma and feeling trapped (p < 0.01, r = 0.36) and the lowest correlation was related to feeling trapped and Self-handicapping (p < 0.01, r = 0.25). According to the value of t and the level of significance, all paths are significant and the hypothesis is confirmed. According to the findings, childhood trauma (P=0.001, β=0.75) and feeling trapped (P=0.001, β=0.25) had a positive and significant effect on Self-handicapping. Also, childhood trauma (P=0.001, β=0.66) had a positive and significant effect on the feeling trapped. The mediating role of feeling trapped was accepted at the 0.95 percent confidence level (P=0.001, β=0.16). The model fit indices of GOF, SRMR, and NFI with values ​​of 0.38, 0.06, and 0.90, respectively, showed that the model has a good fit.

Conclusion: This research was carried out with the aim of determining the fit of the structural equation model of self-handicapping based on childhood trauma with regard to the mediating role of feeling trapped in physical education students. The results showed that the hypothesized model has a good fit. One of the limitations of the current research is the available sampling. Due to the fact that the statistical population of this research included physical education students of Azad University of Qom province, caution should be exercised in generalizing. Another limitation of this research is the uncertainty of the socio-economic status of the family and its effect on self-impairment. Information was collected through a self-report questionnaire. The influence of factors such as the time and place conditions, mental and physical conditions on the completion of the questionnaire were also not far from the expectation that, for various reasons, it was not possible to control all these variables. Incorporating a new program as mental health screening for physical education students and conducting timely therapeutic interventions can be an effective step towards improving mental health indicators. It is suggested that cognitive and emotional skills should be included in the psychological intervention programs of university counseling centers for physical education students in order to minimize the effects of self-handicapping, childhood trauma, and feeling trapped. Based on the above findings, it can be said that childhood trauma has a direct and indirect effect on the self-handicapping of physical education students.

Keywords: self-handicapping, childhood trauma, feeling trapped, physical education students.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines

The cooperation of the participants in the present study was voluntary and accompanied by their consent.

Funding

No funding.

Authors' contribution

All authors contributed equally to the article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.