Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Theodore Bartholomew

Reader 2

Jennifer Ma

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2023 Taliana Abadi

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the lived experience of collegiate athletes quitting their sport and transitioning from active engagement in an organized, collegiate-level sport to non-participation in the sport at that competitive level. To do so, five to seven participants, pretested for athletic identity to gather a diverse sample, will participate in a semi-structured interview to gain an understanding of their feelings regarding the loss of athletic identity and how it impacted their well-being. Through these interviews, the data should signify trends among participants such that 1) The participants’ loss of athletic identity is perceived to negatively influence their well-being, 2) This effect will be more apparent for those who formerly had a stronger athletic identity, and 3) This relation may be expressed differently according to gender identity, such that female-identifying participants will experience heightened or diminished negative impact on their well-being as compared to male-identifying participants. This study hopes to determine which possibility is more accurate for the experiences of female-identifying athletes. The information that could be gained from this study would add to the existing literature on athletic identity and mental health, introduce the concern for the well-being of former athletes, and provide valuable information for former athletes to use to better understand their experiences.

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