Who benefits more from mindfulness? A preliminary study exploring moderating effect of personality traits on competition anxiety in athletes

Objective: Mindfulness can help athletes better regulate their emotions, and analyzing personality traits may help identify those who would benefit more from psychological intervention activities to optimize subsequent training effects. This study sought to examine the effects of mindfulness training on athletes’ competition anxiety and to consider the role of personality traits.

Methods: Fifty athletes (mean age = 21.87 years, SD = 1.62; 23 females and 27 males) were randomly assigned to a mindfulness group (n = 23), which received 8 weeks of mindfulness training, and a control group (n = 27) receiving no intervention. The athletes’ personality traits, mindfulness level, and competition anxiety were measured according to the study plan before and after mindfulness training, and at an 8-week follow up.

Results: Compared with the control group, mindfulness training had a positive effect on the level of mindfulness and self-confidence in the mindfulness group, as well as a greater improvement in cognitive/somatic state anxiety. Improvements remained stable from the end of training to follow up. Additionally, athletes with high activity and high extraversion had more improvement in mindfulness levels and cognitive/somatic state anxiety, respectively, while athletes with low neuroticism demonstrated greater improvement in self-confidence.

Conclusions: Mindfulness training helps to reduce athletes’ competition anxieties, and personality traits might affect the improvement effect to a certain extent, which provided a reference for optimizing mindfulness training and developing more personalized psychological training for athletes who display certain personality traits.