Objective: The purpose of the current study was to retrospectively look at the
influence of previous participation in adventurous sports and how it can be used
to predict resilient – assessed using two psychometric measures – behaviour in
a cold-water stressor.
Method: Twelve undergraduate University of Chichester students (20.7±1.15
years) voluntarily took part in the study. All participants answered three
psychometric measures – two for resilience assessment and one of sporting
participation. Then all participants completed the cold pressor test whilst time
completed, toe temperature and heart-rate were measured. During the test and
immediately on completion, the researcher also asked the participants to rate
the and pain & intensity of the experience on a scale of 1 – 10.
Results: The results of the study indicated that participation in adventure
sports at a high level of intensity correlates with increased levels of resilience.
Although statistical analysis indicated some tendencies towards significance in
the heartrate change against the resilience measures, as well significant
relationships within the data; further analysis showed no physiological
measures were related to the psychometric measures of resilience.
Discussion and conclusion: The study concluded that whilst it appears that
high intensity participation in adventure sports is related to increased levels of
resilience, the way in which the CPT was conducted, meant that it provided no
predictive influence on testing the resilience present in each of the participants.
Sample size and the population used as well as not being able to use heart-rate
variability were identified as limitations of the study. Due to the fact that
resilience currently lacks a distinct working definition, further research should
work to identify one in order to allow research to be able to better establish what
affects it and how.