The Links between Cortisol and Performance: Motivation, Motivity, Cognition, and Emotion. Cortisol and Emotional Intelligence in Athletes

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is of great importance to performance in sports. EI appears to be supportive in relation to psychological stress occurring within competitive settings and presumably reduces the extent of a potentially harming stress reaction through emotion regulation (Mikolajczak, Roy, Luminet, Fillée, & Timary, 2007). Most studies focus on the role of EI under psychological stress conditions although physiological stress emerges in sports as well (e.g. Cadore et al., 2012). Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of EI on cortisol secretion following an artificial, physiological stressor (i.e., cold pressor task) and its impact on performance in a golf related task (1,5m putting). Initially, 68 experienced male golfers (age: 25,5 ±4,1) were instructed to put one arm for 3 minutes into either cold water (i.e., 0-4°C) or water at body temperature (control group). Participants performed 15 one-handed putts preceding and following water immersion. Every 7–8 minutes cortisol was assessed. Golf performance was recorded by means of hits, distance from the whole and technical parameters (SAM PutLab System). EI was assessed using Trait EI Questionnaire (Freudenthaler et al., 2008). Results show that the induced stressor led to a significant increase of cortisol in comparison to the control group. Also, for the control group a negative correlation between EI and cortisol was detected through out the experiment, that was not present for the experimental group. In conclusion first results indicate that the nature of the stressor influences the protective role of EI, that is EI appears to have little impact on cortisol secretion following an artificial, physiological stressor.