Introduction

Noting that playing sports at the championship level comes with its difficulties, the constant experience of stress for athletes is one of the significant factors; Therefore, in contrast to these stresses, coping mechanisms and styles athletes use may affect their conditions positively and negatively. Coping styles refer to how individuals protect themselves against the effects of stress by using adaptive resources and care strategies. Also, coping styles include strategies that aim to manage emotional responses that generate stress and release them. People can be distinguished according to three basic types of coping styles, problem-oriented coping style, emotion-oriented coping style, and avoidance coping style. Problem-oriented coping strategies refer to behaviors that are used to solve the problem, reconstruct the problem cognitively, or try to change the stressful situation. Emotion-oriented strategies include behaviors in which a person tries to reduce his unpleasant feelings instead of solving his problem. Emotion-oriented coping strategies include being nervous and upset, crying, fault-finding, and mental preoccupation. Also, avoidance coping strategies include behaviors that are more of the type of avoidance and escape from stressful situations.

On the other hand, athletes certainly have to compete in stressful situations, so stress and anger are common in them because facing a potentially stressful situation causes a person to experience excitement in response to those situations. Aggression is a maladaptive individual behavior that shows the effect of internal emotions in the social environment. Aggressive behavior can be reflected in different aspects of sports competition, which include different forms or processes (for example, anger, aggression, antisocial behavior, rumination, and agitation). On the other hand, different forms of training and mental exercises may play a role in physiological and psychological functions and lead to optimal performance, in the meantime, mindfulness is considered one of the most important mental training, which is increasingly used among Athletes have become popular because mindfulness can affect a person's performance. In general, identifying the factors affecting the performance of martial athletes in comparison with normal people is to improve the continuous performance of athletes and motivate normal people to become champions in sports. The implicit form of the relationship between the variables of coping styles, aggression, and mindfulness has been studied. In this sense, the researcher intends to compare coping styles, aggression, and mindfulness in martial arts athletes with ordinary people, and the main question raised in this research is: Is there a difference between coping styles, aggression, and mindfulness? Is there a significant difference between the awareness of martial arts athletes and ordinary people?

Materials and Methods: The research method was causal-comparative. The statistical population included all martial arts athletes of Qom city along with their normal counterparts in 1402. The statistical sample consisted of 60 people (30 combat athletes and 30 normal people) who were selected by available sampling method. The tools used included Endler and Parker's (1990) Short Form Coping with Stressful Situations Questionnaire, Bass and Perry's Aggression Questionnaire, and the Freiburg Mindfulness Scale. Data analysis was done at two descriptive and inferential levels.

Results: The findings showed that there is a significant difference between coping styles, aggression and mindfulness in martial arts athletes and normal people. The average of avoidance coping and emotional coping of martial arts athletes is lower than normal people. The average problem-oriented coping of martial arts athletes is higher than normal people. The average physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger and hostility of martial arts athletes is lower than normal people. The average mindfulness of martial arts athletes is higher than normal people.

Conclusion: Several major and important reasons such as the high level of communication skills of athletes, better cognitive and executive performance, the effect of hormones secreted as a result of exercise and emotional refinement, and other topics have been proposed. Here, several major and important reasons are stated in justifying why athletes are less aggressive than non-athletes. Communication skills are specific acquired situational skills that help people to maximize positive outcomes in interpersonal relationships and reduce negative outcomes and reach their goals. According to Lazarus' cognitive-motivational relational theory, motivation makes the athlete reach the goal (such as competing in the Olympics) and how mental and behavioral responses are crystallized in order to achieve success (which can be taught), which depends on the role of cognition in It has emotional responses in sports environments, so according to this, athletes use more adapted coping styles in order to achieve success, so that they can control their negative emotions and have higher adaptation and, as a result, better performance and more sports success. Also, according to the cognitive-executive function theory, aggression can occur due to weak cognitive function and weak information processing at the levels of the prefrontal cortex or other brain areas. This view associates aggression with low levels of cognitive-executive function and psychological-neurological defects. Any deficiency in this area is associated with high levels of impulsivity and uninhibited behaviors, and since high levels of impulsivity are related to aggression and doing sports improves memory, mental and cognitive performance, as well as improving attention. It can be said that one of the reasons why athletes are less aggressive than non-athletes is the better functioning of the cognitive and mental system, which causes them to have better cognitive and mental performance in dealing with different events, situations and people, and to avoid abnormal behaviors. turn less and the high level of mindfulness of these athletes enables them to recognize and accept the presence of external stimuli, bodily sensations, emotional reactions and perceptions without showing excessive reaction to them and paying attention and focusing on thoughts and behaviors that It directs in favor of their performance, so it can be seen that there is a significant difference between coping styles, aggression and mindfulness in martial arts athletes and normal people.

Keywords: Coping Styles, Aggression, Mindfulness, Martial Arts Athletes.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines

The ethical principles observed in the article, such as the informed consent of the participants, the confidentiality of information, the permission of the participants to cancel their participation in the research. Ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of ToloeMehr Qom.

Funding

This study was extracted from the M.A thesis of first author at Department of Sport Psychology of University of ToloeMehr Qom.

Authors' contribution

Authors contributed equally in preparing this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.