The Psychology of Resilience: Empowering Athletes with a Potential Risk of Experiencing Sexual Violence in Sports

Abstract

A positive, caring and safe sports climate is essential for the healthy development of young people. One of the responsibilities of parties involved in organised sports is to create a safe sports climate, but in practice, difficulties in creating such a climate are still experienced nowadays. Implementing prevention programmes solely focused on coaches or the environment is not a comprehensive approach. Therefore, the biopsychosocial profile of athletes representing potential risks of experiencing sexual violence in sports can serve as a base to develop prevention programmes aimed at empowering athletes and stimulating their resistance towards sexual violence. In practice, this requires measures to make (young) athletes more resilient against the dominant position of coaches and other authority figures within sports. But how? To answer this question, the psychology of resilience will be reviewed to gain insights into the future development of these practical measures to safeguard athletes.

1. Introduction

Sport is a popular leisure activity among young people. In the Netherlands, approximately 1.9 million young people (aged between 5 and 18 years) practice sports of which 1.3 million participate in organised sports at a club level [1]. Organised sport is, therefore, often regarded as the third educational environment — next to home and school — in which youngsters can physically develop and socially learn and have fun. This is substantively evident in the physical, mental and social effects of sports exercise [e.g., [2, 3]]. Thus, sports participation offers excellent opportunities for contributing to personal and social development and life skills [4, 5]. In this light, the World Health Organisation [6] put guidelines in place to promote physical activity and sport among children and young people. However, there is another side to sports: an unsafe side [7], which can lead to negative outcomes such as depression, exhaustion, eating disorders and anxiety [8, 9]. Within the sports world, there is an obligation to protect athletes from harassment and abuse as it is embedded in the statutory governing documents of sport, including the Olympic Charter [10] and the IOC Code of Ethics [11]. All athletes have a right to engage in ‘safe sport’. One particular form of unsafe practices in sports gained increased disclosure through the media affecting the public’s attention to these events: sexual violence. Sexual violence ‘includes a continuum of different behaviours, ranging from sexual harassment without body contact, to transgressive behaviours, to sexual violence with body contact’ ([1], p. 2). Examples of sexual violence are making sexual comments or jokes, caressing the body or rape. Alongside, researchers who studied these events provided insight through prevalence research further strengthening the severity. Consequently, it became known as a worldwide issue in sports (e.g., in Sweden [8], the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany [9] and Australia [12]).

#MeToo, #SportToo and #CoachDontTouchMe: three social media initiatives asking for urgent recognition and action for sexual violence globally. In 2017, the already existing #MeToo movement rose through the respective survivors’ disclosure of sexual violence practices conducted by film producer Harvey Weinstein. Through its increased attention, the movement popped up in a multitude of countries and communities as has happened to the sports community: #SportToo and #CoachDontTouchMe. Since then, notorious sports cases of sexual violence have come to light. For example, within USA Swimming, a dozen teenage female athletes experienced various forms of sexual misconduct by coaches over decades, and in British professional football, young male soccer players disclosed being sexually abused by their former elite coaches over decades. More recently, one of the largest sexual abuse scandals in sports history was disclosed within USA Gymnastics. Almost 400 gymnasts experienced forms of sexual abuse conducted by their coaches, gym owners, medical doctor Larry Nassar or other adults working in this community. And, unfortunately, this is not the end. To this day, more and more cases of athletes experiencing sexual violence in sports keep coming to light. This emphasises the importance of creating a further understanding of this phenomenon and knowing how to design interventions to safeguard athletes. To gain further insight into sexual violence towards athletes, it has been studied from different angles. One of these angles is the development of measures aiming to prevent sexual violence in sports. Until now, most of these measures focused on policies surrounding the entourage and sports itself: a social perspective [13, 14]. In other words, their viewpoint starts by looking closer at the influence of social structures within organisations and their respective social norms about sexual violence in the sports community (e.g., coaches grooming athletes). However, an important angle in developing these preventive measures has not yet become a focal point: personal risk factors for experiencing sexual violence in sports [15]. So far, scientific research barely focused on the emergence of sexual violence with the focus on the athlete himself despite the high prevalence of these experiences, and simultaneously, the importance of prevention through the empowerment of the athletes [15]. Therefore, it would be sensible to understand athletes’ potential risks for experiencing sexual violence. Why are some athletes more prone than others? How to counterbalance these risks to empower the resilience of athletes? To answer these questions, a biopsychosocial profile is developed by Van Voorthuizen et al. [16] to gain insight into potential biological, psychological and social factors of athletes resulting in a higher risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports. Through the identification of these factors, there is by no means the intention to place responsibility for experiencing sexual violence on athletes with a higher risk. It must be emphasised that this chapter contributes to the recognition of the vulnerabilities of athletes in sports to offer protection from becoming a potential victim through preventive measures empowering the athlete’s resilience. This is important since being resilient to adversities contributes to mental health and overall well-being [17]. In the current context, resilience is desirable because it can counterbalance the vulnerability of athletes before, during or after sexual violent practices.

This chapter aims to add further definition to the biopsychosocial profile by elaborating on the identified biological, psychological and societal risk factors of athletes. By creating a further understanding of the existence of these risk factors, more insight is obtained serving to the recognition of vulnerabilities of athletes. Furthermore, to empower athletes at risk, the psychology of resilience will be applied to gain insights into future directions for developing preventive measures to safeguard athletes in sports.

2. Biopsychosocial profile

The biopsychosocial profile of Van Voorthuizen [16] (see Figure 1) is based on Engel’s biopsychosocial model [18] and has been applied to topics closely linked to sexual harassment and abuse (e.g., mental and physical health [19, 20] and sexual health [21]). This multisystem perspective entails the general idea of sexual violence in sports, arising from a complex interaction of various factors: biological (e.g., sex), psychological (e.g., personality traits) and social factors (e.g., upbringing). In this paragraph, we critically assess the outcomes of the biopsychosocial profile of Van Voorthuizen [16] against existing literature to gain a further understanding of this profile. This will be done by explaining the origin of the risk factor, as well as reviewing the completion of this profile. The insights gathered in this paragraph can be used in the development of preventive measures aiming to empower at-risk athlete’s resilience.

Figure 1.

The biopsychosocial profile.

2.1 Biological factors

The first category contains biological risk factors. These are biologically or genetically determined factors. The study by Van Voorthuizen et al. [16] found three biological factors, increasing the risk of athletes experiencing sexual violence in sports: age, gender and sexual identity.

2.1.1 Age

For youth, it is important to develop levels of autonomy to become independent individuals [22, 23]. By obtaining space to develop autonomy, their ability to make choices by themselves and take responsibility grows. Feeling encouraged by others in this process results in youth feeling heard and valued to be themselves, and sports environments are influencing this. By applying the athlete-centred approach in sports, actors contribute to their athletes’ autonomy development (e.g., by providing options for exercises to be chosen by athletes). However, the autonomy development of athletes aged below 18 years is simultaneously a risk factor for experiencing sexual violence. Given diverse relationships of power in sports — for example, the coach-athlete relationship — youth athletes can be disempowered in developing and outing their autonomy [7]. Actors, with these power relationships, can influence the athlete’s sports performance and personal life resulting in the athlete’s dependency on these actors. Therefore, theoretically seen are young athletes at greater risk of experiencing sexual violence. However, support for this risk factor in recent research is still quite mixed. For example, a literature study by Bjornseth and Szabo [24] concludes sexual violence targeted at children is more prevalent. However, Parent and Vaillancourt-Morel [25] did not find support for this risk factor among their Canadian athlete sample. Therefore, it is necessary to further study this risk factor for it to be included in interventions.

2.1.2 Gender

According to Van Voorthuizen et al. [16], the athletes’ gender did not differentiate between the risk of athletes experiencing sexual violence. However, there is a discussion about the difference in the prevalence of sexual violence among diverse genders in sports in scientific literature. Currently, the philosophy of binarism¹ is most frequently applied in studies about gender-based (sexual) violence. So far, several studies found results that females are more likely to report sexual violence compared to males (e.g., [27, 28, 29, 30]). However, as stated by Vertommen et al. [29], it might be the case that sexual violence incidents by males are underreported, resulting in a lower prevalence (i.e., not equal to males not experiencing sexual violence in sports). Thus, the question arises whether it is the case that females are experiencing sexual violence in sports more often, or whether there is a difference in disclosure to officials. Additionally, the binarism dichotomy harmfully impacts all types of (cis- and trans-¹) gender identities and expressions² in sports (e.g., [31]). Due to the underexposure, the risk of an unsafe sports environment for particular gender identities and expressions can occur. However, until now, determining gender identity and/or expression as a possible risk factor for athletes to experience sexual violence is still too complex given the limited overview in scientific literature.

2.1.3 Sexual identity

A third biological risk factor found is sexual identity. At the start of puberty, youth step on the path of their psychosocial development of sexuality [32] to explore their sexual identity to obtain clarity about their identity at the end of this path [33]. Their identification will either turn out as straight or as one of the identities of the LGBTQIA+ community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and other gender and/or sexual minority). However, the safety of sports of the LGBTQIA+ community is being challenged. Several studies found results of LGBTQIA+ athletes have significantly more experiences of sexual harm compared to non-LGBTQIA+ identifying athletes [29, 30]. Menzel et al. [31] found the existence of homophobia, and particularly transphobia, still a current problem in sports as experienced by almost 90% of LGBTQIA+ respondents in Europe. This is due to the cisheteronormative nature of many sports cultures that creates an unsafe sports environment for LGBTQIA+ athletes [34]. Cisheteronormativity within sports cultures advantages cisgender identities and heterosexual athletes [35]. This means that athletes who overstep sports culture’s societal boundaries — accepting identification with cisgender identity and/or fulfilling the heterosexuality norm — are disadvantaged in sports participation (e.g., by prejudice, exclusion or ignorance). Unsafe sports environments for LGBTQIA+ athletes are formed by cisheterosexist policies of governments or other institutions, which leads to them becoming more prone to experience sexual violence. However, interestingly, this is a result of society’s cultures and norms — with a cisheteronormative nature — setting social standards. Thus, this means the renormalisation of social standards in sports cultures will create an inclusive community for cisgender and LGBTQIA+ athletes.

2.2 Psychological factors

The second group of risk factors contains factors relating to an athlete’s personality characteristics influencing how the athlete deals with life events. In other words, underlying individual dispositions influence the behaviour and experiences of athletes. Seven psychological factors increasing the risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports were found by Van Voorthuizen [16]: altruism, agreeableness, naivety, self-esteem, quietness and neurodiversity. With this, it must be noted that there is so far from no to little support in the existing scientific literature for these risk factors. Therefore, the explanation of their emergence is limited to a theoretical level and needs to be further researched.

2.2.1 Altruism

Athletes acting upon the needs of others without benefitting themselves are displaying altruistic behaviours. Athletes in the study by van Voorthuizen et al. [16] described their altruistic behaviour as being ready for others at the expense of themselves; they ignored themselves and felt the need to help others. Despite altruistic actions being taken with their best intent, it results in greater proneness to experiencing sexual violence. This is — based on a consequentialist perspective — due to an imbalance of costs and benefits for the two individuals involved [36]. The costs are for the altruistic actor (i.e., the athlete) and the benefits for the receiver (i.e., the perpetrator of sexual violence). In other words, altruistic athletes offer themselves in their relationship with a (possible) perpetrator who takes advantage of their best intentions for humans. If situations like these keep occurring over time, altruistic athletes are likely to see this as normal behaviour. As a result, they might lose the potential to signal their risk of experiencing sexual violence. This, in turn, increases the risk of these athletes to experience sexual violence in sports.

2.2.2 Agreeableness

Individuals perceived as agreeable display different types of behaviours such as being kind, considerate, likeable, cooperative and helpful. They are often labelled as friendly and prosocial. Individuals who have higher levels of prosocial motivation offer more help to different kinds of victims across a wider range of situations due to their agreeable behavioural nature [37]. However, such as altruism, athletes who tend to behave agreeably could be easily misused given their prosocial intentions. These athletes can be primed to engage in any behaviour related to sexual violence — called grooming — due to their willingness to help and concern for others [38, 39]. The greatest risk for agreeable athletes to be groomed is at the stage in which perpetrators try to establish trust and friendship with the athlete [38]. After trust and friendship are established, the perpetrator breaks down the athlete’s barriers to comply with sexual violence. For example, via the foot-in-the-door technique [40]. Perpetrators start building trust and friendship by first asking for something relatively small that is in all probability to be accepted by the athlete (especially if they tend to be agreeable). Hereafter, athletes are more inclined to accept further requests resulting in perpetrators increasing their requests to eventually reach their goal: sexual violence.

2.2.3 Naivety

Athletes likely to act naïve are at risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports. This risk factor is highly complex given its influence on expectations and explanations of actions and minds of the self and others (e.g., motivations, desires and beliefs) as part of an individual’s cognitive development [41]. During the cognitive development in childhood, the underlying mechanism of naivety — Theory of Mind (ToM) — develops. It is ‘the ability to reason about mental states and understand intentions, dispositions, emotions and beliefs of both oneself and others’ ([25], p. 206). In other words, it helps an individual understand others by correctly interpreting cues of their mental state and making sense of actions (i.e., mindreading). This information provides insight into how to respond to the other. However, this so-called mindreading is difficult for people whose behaviours are influenced by naivety. They might find it difficult to make the right choices, are too optimistic or have trouble with overseeing consequences in social interactions. Despite their best intent, these people are often perceived as gullible, silly or (too) trusting in others. Difficulties in correctly estimating others result in an increased opportunity to be groomed and to experience sexual violence. Athletes might not perceive the perpetrator’s grooming actions as wrong since perpetrators ensure athletes believe that they want it themselves as well [24]. Thus, important cues of awareness of possible grooming or sexual violence practices may remain unnoticed by athletes likely to act naïve.

2.2.4 Self-esteem

The development of self-esteem in individuals is a life-span trajectory and is a relatively stable — but not fully invariable — trait while an individual goes through life. An individual’s self-esteem is formed by their subjective evaluation of their worthiness [42]. Interestingly, self-esteem can function as a predictor and outcome of experiencing sexual violence (e.g., [43, 44]). Self-esteem as a risk factor is seen as unfulfiled needs, possibly conflict and competing needs according to Baumeister [45]. These needs are formed by an individual’s self-knowledge used to evaluate their worthiness. Together with this, the absence of positive views of themselves also contributes to low self-esteem. However, more importantly, this is not inherent to the presence of negative views by individuals with low self-esteem. As stated by Baumeister [45], ‘if one can see one’s shortcomings, others may see them, tooʼ. Perpetrators of sexual violence can misuse an athlete’s low self-esteem by interpreting it as a lack of competence to the rejection of others. Perpetrators contribute to athletes’ self-esteem through an accurate appraisal of one’s abilities in sports that is likely to positively influence the athlete’s subjective evaluation of their worthiness. When this accurate appraisal either contributes to the athlete’s self-knowledge or the absence of positive views, this behaviour contributes to building trust and friendship as part of the earlier-mentioned grooming process. As a result, their risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports increases.

2.2.5 Quietness

Quietness is a typical behaviour often associated with the personality traits introversion and shyness. According to Jung and Baynes [46], introverts are engaged with their internal world of feelings, thoughts and emotions and are more inclined to turn their attention inward. This behaviour might be perceived by others as being shy. However, the behaviours of these two traits are incorrectly compared. Cain [47] explains the difference as shyness being ‘the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulatingʼ (p. 12). Nevertheless, the comparison of the two traits is understandable due to both tending to turn their attention inward. Van Voorthuizen [16] identified quietness as a risk factor for experiencing sexual violence in sports. Quiet people could be perceived as withdrawing from and seeking the avoidance of communication when possible. In other words, quiet athletes could be more likely to withhold from disclosing sexual violence. However, it remains unclear what causes this association. Could it be that introvert, because they engage with their internal world, are perceived as people who do not speak up easily, and therefore, possibly contributing to a delayed disclosure of sexual violence? And would this be similar for shy athletes? Or would their fear of social disapproval and humiliation result in a greater tendency to conform to sexual violence? To gain more insight into this risk factor, further research is necessary.

2.2.6 Neurodiversity

Lastly, athletes dealing with an emotional disorder are at greater risk of experiencing sexual violence. To ensure the inclusion of all athletes with a wide range of causes and consequences of emotional disorders (e.g., autism, ADHD depression), the terminology of neurodiversity³ will be maintained. It is used as an umbrella term to include all athletes whose brain differences affect how their brain works related to a range of mental functions (e.g., sociability, learning and mood attention; [48]). Ultimately, it affects an athlete’s risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports. In sports, studies found a high prevalence of neurodivergent athletes experiencing any form of sexual violence (e.g., [29]). However, neurodiversity as a risk factor has only been studied in the context of daily life regarding exclusion from education and employment, the need for personal assistance with daily living, reduced physical and emotional defences, communication barriers that hamper the reporting of violence, societal stigma and discrimination [49, 50]. But they found a high prevalence in studies about sports. Therefore, it remains unclear to what extent these risk factors are generalisable in the sports context.

2.3 Social factors

The third category of risk factors is about social interactions formed by norms and values in the environment of an athlete. These factors are important factors for nurturing the athlete and their consequential development (e.g., upbringing). In total, seven social factors — three about the athletes’ upbringing (interpersonal relationships, incest and pressure to perform at home) and four about the athletes’ sports environment (power, elite sports, tunnel vision and isolation) — were found by Van Voorthuizen [16] to increase the risk of experiencing sexual violence in sports.

2.3.1 Interpersonal relations at home

A child’s attachment influences not only one’s behaviour regarding intimate caregiving and receiving relationships with ‘attachment figures’, such as parents but also children or romantic partners [51]. When a child is securely attached to their parent, the child freely explores the world without experiencing distress. Together with a child’s confidence in their attachment figure’s availability, the individual seeks support, protection and comfort in times of distress: it is their safe haven. However, once these figures do not provide a safe base and haven to the child (e.g., parents being insensitive, physically or emotionally unavailable, rejecting the child’s need) insecure attachment develops. Insecurely attached children show behavioural patterns formed by clingy behaviour, immature over(in)dependency, preoccupation with attachment figures and limited exploration due to unfulfiled emotional needs [52]. Thus, from an early age, they become dependent or feel stress and anxiety. Given the attachment style’s influence on the need for intimacy and proximity in relationships, an impaired attachment — lack of warmth of their primary caregiver — results in a higher risk of experiencing sexual violence (e.g., [53, 54, 55]). Specifically, individuals with attachment anxiety are argued as being more vulnerable targets for sexual violence given their need for approval, preoccupation with relationships and continuous sensitivity to threats of abandonment and rejection [54]. Moreover, they are more likely to use sex as a way to meet their love and intimacy needs: sex and love are mistaken to be the same. In sports, athletes with unsafe attachments could seek for fulfilment of their emotional needs at attachment figures in their sports environment (e.g., coaches). This increases their risk of experiencing sexual violence in case there are bad intentions regarding fulfilling emotional needs. It could contribute to the grooming process, and thus, sexual violence is likely to occur.

2.3.2 Incest at home

Besides a child’s attachment influencing their development, experiences of sexual abuse are also a disrupting factor. Child sexual abuse (CSA) is defined as ‘any unwanted and non-consensual sexual behaviours occurring before the age of 16 years with a perpetrator who is at least 5 years older than the victim at the time of the abuseʼ ([56], p. 352). Forms of CSA can differ in the frequency, duration or type of contact of which incest is one of them. One specific form is incest is defined as sexual contact (i.e., activities) between a child and a close relative (e.g., brother/sister, parent, uncle/aunt and grandfather/−mother) [57]. According to studies, individuals who experience CSA are more prone to revictimisation of sexual violence [56]. After CSA, the child’s sense of self and interpersonal relationships is disrupted causing a wide range of behavioural, cognitive and affective impairments. Consequently, they experience difficulties in making sense of the abuse, decisions about relationships and evaluating risky sexual situations. Next to a negative effect on their self-esteem, they obtain tendencies to blame themselves for the abuse and have greater needs to be in and maintain a relationship with a male. These consequences — difficulties in coping, internal attributions, insecure attachment and hyperfeminine personality — are seen as instigations of revictimization based on Gold et al.’s theoretical model [58]. However, an athlete’s previous experiences of incest as a risk for revictimization of sexual violence in sports can only be theorised given the current lack of scientific research into this risk factor.

2.3.3 Pressure to perform

Parents acting out of line — based on a child’s perspective — are affecting one’s sports experience. They can lose sight of their child’s reason to participate in sports and can — either consciously or unconsciously — put pressure on their child’s sports performance [59]. Too much pressure decreases the child’s motivation and enjoyment to participate in sports [60]. Based on Lee’s [61] distinction of two types of emotionally over-involved parents — the excitable and the fanatical parent — the fanatical parent inappropriately increases the pressure to perform as opposed to the excitable. Their behaviours are of a controlling and confrontational nature due to their preoccupation with winning and losing and, therefore, not considering the child’s best interest. They believe their child is only participating in sports to win, want to gain status by and obtain recognition for their performance or become a professional athlete. As a result, the child’s psychological needs — formed by autonomy, competence and relatedness — are unfulfiled by its parents [62] fulfilment of these needs is important for a child’s intrinsic motivation to participate in sports [63]. Consequently, these children feel frustrated and need replacement and compensation from others who can fulfil their psychological needs (i.e., attachment figures, such as peers or coaches) [64]. Ultimately, a maladaptive cycle of behavioural patterns is likely to occur preventing athletes from making decisions and acting in their own best interest. In turn, it will make them vulnerable to becoming victims of sexual violence perpetrated by attachment figures in sports associations who can fulfil their psychological needs.

2.3.4 Power

Power is an interesting phenomenon influencing dynamics in sports. Given it is the third pedagogical environment of children, the coach-athlete relationship is of importance [65]. The exertion of the power of coaches in this relationship sets the tone for developing a sports culture that either contributes to or prevents the existence of sexual violence in sports. Through awareness of power as a circulating concept, coaches can positively contribute to the child’s pedagogical development. For example, by applying power in the coach-athlete relationship as a social function in a shared power arrangement to enhance the athlete’s well-being and performance, for example, stimulating the athlete’s autonomy [66]. However, negative consequences for athletes occur once coaches see power as an inclusive entity of being a coach. By exhibiting power over athletes, coaches place themselves in a dominant position as opposed to the athlete’s submissive [67]. As a result, athletes become dependent on the coach (e.g., their sports performance), and this can be misused to eventually achieve their goal: sexual violence [68, 69]. St-Pierre et al. [70] studied the modus operandi of coaches who perpetrated sex offences in Canada: half of them had an authoritarian coaching style that made athletes feel intimidated. Behaviours, such as negative feedback, directive communication and focus on performance as the only goal are typical for this coaching style [71]. Moreover, athletes coached by an authoritarian coaching style coach are more likely to experience sexual harassment [72]. Altogether, power in itself is not a risk factor for athletes experiencing sexual violence: an imbalance of power in the coach-athlete relationship is.

2.3.5 Elite sports

Elite athletes are part of an exclusive group of athletes and are ‘one who has superior athletic talent, undergoes specialised training, receives expert coaching and is exposed to early competition’ ([60], p. 122). Besides their exclusive character in the nature of their athletic ability and young age, they also share different experiences in their sports participation [73]. In other words, the environment created to develop elite (child) athletes is unique. In elite sports, athletes are placed in an environment, prioritising performance and winning as part of their sports career. However, prioritising this success can go beyond the athlete’s well-being. In that case, problematic practices occur putting the athlete’s safety at risk resulting in a higher risk of the occurrence of (sexual) violence [74]. The set expectation of this performance environment is contributing to the normalisation of (sexual) violence while participating in sports resulting in a higher chance of problematic practices remaining under the radar [75]. Therefore, actors involved in the elite athlete’s sports environment should emphasise focusing on the person behind the athlete: the athlete-centred approach.

2.3.6 Tunnel vision on sports and isolation

The last two at-risk factors to experience sexual violence in sports are athletes who set aside everything for their performance and athletes who are (socially) isolated. Once athletes are performing sports on a higher competition level, it is more likely for their lives to become unbalanced compared to peers performing sports on a lower level. This is due to particular sacrifices the athlete and their family are making for the athlete to be able to perform on this level [74]. In other words, the athlete sets aside everything for their performance. However, the danger about this is to be placed in a one-dimensionality context: solely their sports. This can result in diminishing, for example, educational goals and social relationships [76]. The situation can worsen once the coach is taking over the role of a parental figure, resulting in the athlete’s isolation from their family. Once an athlete’s personal life is infiltrated in this manner, the chance of experiencing sexual violence becomes greater given the presence of opportunity [15, 77]. These problematic practices in sports can be normalised by actors performing techniques of isolation, such as sessions behind closed doors, a lack of friendships outside the sports (e.g., resulting in the impossibility of comparing ‘normalʼ behaviours with peers) and the creation of a culture of silence and retribution [78]. Via these ways, opportunities for sexual violence to occur are risen.

2.4 In summary

Through the biopsychosocial profile, potential risk factors of athletes experiencing sexual violence in sports are identified. By elaborating on and understanding the possible origin of these risk factors, insights can be taken into account in developing preventive strategies, as well as supporting existing (non-disclosed) victims of sexual violence. By creating awareness of risk factors via this profile, future measures should require to make athletes more resilient to protect them from experiencing sexual violence. With this, it is important to note the need for research to gain more (substantial) support for cause-effect relationships of the above risk factors. Additionally, the risk factors of this profile could be correlated with each other (e.g., agreeableness with altruism, gender with sexual identity, attachment with incest and tunnel vision with elite sports). The next part focuses on empowering athletes stimulating their resistance and preventing them from becoming a victim of sexual violence. First, a general explanation of resilience is given. Hereafter, protective factors for empowering athletes will be discussed. Finally, the chapter ends with an existing intervention aiming to create a safe sports climate protecting athletes from experiencing sexual violence.

3. The psychology of resilience

For decades, the definition and operationalisation of resilience have been disputed [79], and as a result, scholars have written extensively about this psychological construct. The concept of resilience emerges from developmental psychology [80, 81, 82] and focuses on how individuals and communities overcome adversities and trauma [83]. More specifically, resilience is associated with human developmental processes that increase a person’s sense of well-being when encountering adversities [84, 85] such as positive life outcomes by actively focusing on engagement, purpose and perseverance [84]. Resilience is, thus, a dynamic process influenced by multiple temporary related elements [86].

3.1 Psychological resilience

Resilience is not about whether an individual encounters adversity, but it is about how one deals with this adversity. The how is about ‘the role of mental processes and behaviour in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effect of stressorsʼ, called psychological resilience ([80], p. 675), ([81], p. 16). It is, thus, about various psychological processes influencing one’s resilience. The first and most well-known and discussed process of being resilient is that of ‘recovery’, meaning people can bounce back after being negatively influenced by a stressor [84]. The idea centres around individuals who eventually experience well-being in the face of adversity. Therefore, it is a process that involves negative experiences and stress, and the extent to which people respond and recover following onset. Resilient people show a shorter recovery period wherein they quickly regain equilibrium in psychological aspects of life [84]. Like the pathway of recovery, but different in the outcome, is the pathway of ‘growth’. Whilst recovery argues for people to ‘bounce back’, the concept of growth implies that people function even better than they did before encountering the stressor [87]. As such, the adversity eventually leads to increased well-being and better overall functioning in life. It can be imagined that this construct of growth is a desirable outcome when facing adversity. Finally, the equally important concept of ‘sustainability’ entails that people remain stable and healthy after being exposed to stressors [88]. So, in contradiction with recovery and growth, people do not experience major distress in their lives and instead remain stable. For instance, they can maintain social relations in the same way as before a stressful event. This pathway entails the sustainability of values and goals while being confronted with acute and chronic difficulties [89, 90]. In other words, sustainability refers to the ability individuals possess to maintain their physical and mental health despite constantly changing circumstances marked by potentially threatening challenges. Altogether, someone’s resilience can, thus, be cognitively different with various personal outcomes. However, what is influencing these differences in resilience?

3.2 The role of protective factors in resilience

During the transition from childhood into adulthood, an individual’s resilience keeps developing through emerging opportunities and vulnerabilities within the personal environment [91]. This is not only a very dynamic and challenging period but it can also be very influential in altering the life course. According to Fergus and Zimmerman [92], understanding healthy development during these years is crucial for fostering resilience by focusing on strengths (i.e., protective factors) rather than shortcomings (i.e., risk factors). Risk factors are putting the individual at risk and should be considered in a changing environment, such as resilience itself [93]. The presence of protective factors can either help towards a positive outcome or diminish the negative outcome of adversities resulting from risk factors [94, 95]. In other words, protective factors counterbalance risks and lead to positive outcomes. Protective factors can be both assets (i.e., positive individual characteristics such as competence, coping skills and self-efficacy) and resources (i.e., positive external factors such as parental support, adult mentoring or community organisations that promote positive youth development) [92]. Importantly, the culturally sensitive aspect of protective factors — and specifically the resources — contributing to empowering individuals and increasing their resilience should be emphasised. Reid et al. [96] stated that the individual’s culture and context shape the exhibition of an individual’s resilience. Similarly, society’s understanding of resilience, based on social norms, can have detrimental impacts on marginalised people or groups, such as racial minorities. Cultural norms surrounding the individual should be considered in determining protective factors of resilience. Therefore, resilience should be seen as a process that fits the individual’s needs to heal and not society’s needs.

3.3 Resilience in sports: Empowering athletes

So far, in the field of sports, resilience has been studied regarding sport performance. These studies focused on understanding psychological processes to overcome adversities in sports performance [e.g., [82, 83]]. However, the presence of resilience to prevent or overcome the darker side of sports — experiencing sexual violence — remains limitedly explored. In the past decade, researchers in this field focused on identifying the prevalence of sexual violence in sports around the world and provided insights into possible risks resulting in sexual violence. However, they explicitly focused on the role of the coach and the sports environment as risk factors and are, therefore, missing an — if not the most — important aspect of safe sports: the athlete. The identified risk factors of the biopsychosocial profile by Van Voorthuizen et al. [16] that are discussed above, fill this gap by applying the athlete-centreed approach.

3.3.1 Empowerment as a protective asset

In line with this athlete-centred approach, athletes can be empowered through personal characteristics — functioning as protective assets — to either prevent the occurrence of sexual violence or to overcome the consequences of these experiences. Existing interventions have shown the successfulness of competence, self-efficacy and prosocial norms as elements stimulating positive youth development [95, 97, 98, 99, 100], and thus, empowering them. Therefore, these empowerment elements are placed as protective factors in the context of sexual violence in sports.

The first protective factor, competence, entails the experience of mastery and effectiveness in one’s activities, including both social and physical abilities [63] and can be developed through obtaining new knowledge, skills and/or attitudes. It is a central component of self-concept (i.e., the perception of themselves) and provides the athlete with insight into their ability [101]. Given our focus on psychological resilience, we view competence in the light of social abilities. Athletes can be empowered by increasing their competence to become aware of sexual violence either as a prevention measure or by contributing to earlier disclosure of sexual violence. By obtaining new knowledge and attitudes about — for example, (unfolding) sexual violence practices to be recognised by the athlete, or what to do after sexually violent experiences — the athlete’s empowerment is strengthened. Simultaneously, an athlete’s competence is counterbalancing the risk factor of self-esteem given their close relatedness.

The second protective factor is self-efficacy. It entails an individual’s belief in their capacity to behave in a certain way to attain specific goals or have an influence on their environment [102]. It is their self-belief resulting in feeling capable of dealing with internal (e.g., blaming thoughts) and external demands (e.g., taking physical action). Self-efficacy as a preventive measure for sexual violence can be formed by skills training (e.g., decision-making skills). Through skills training, they obtain a secure feeling of their ability. Additionally, after experiencing sexual violence, athletes will believe in being able to cope with adversities (e.g., getting their life back together) when self-efficacy is a coping mechanism [103]. As a result, self-efficacy can also counterbalance the risk factor of self-esteem given the subjective aspect of this concept as mentioned before.

The third and last protective factor is the athlete’s social norms. These are rules and guidelines about how one is expected to behave in a particular social context. It is, thus, a powerful tool to shape behaviour. Knowledge gained from social norms in sports contributes to the acceptability of the occurrence of these events. To establish safe sports — and thus, not accepting sexual violence — prosocial norms must become the standard in this environment. Prosocial norms are a subset of norms focusing on healthy, positive, ethical and prosocial standards [104]. Forms of prosocial norms often included in interventions are reciprocity, responsibility, volunteerism and altruism [105]. Theoretically seen, prosocial norms can counterbalance risk factors such as the pressure to perform, imbalances of power, isolation and altruism. Through the establishment of these prosocial norms, athletes become (more) aware of unacceptable behaviour in sports. Altogether, these elements empower athletes to prevent themselves from sexual violence or serve their recovery, growth or sustainability as their psychological resilience.

3.3.2 Social support as a protective resource

Social support is an external resource contributing to the resilience of an athlete. Social support can be manifested in diverse ways through its structure (i.e., the size, extent and frequency) and functionality (i.e., the perceived helpfulness and the quality) [106]. It has been found as a key protective factor functioning in two ways. It is associated with recovery, growth or sustainability after experiencing sexual violence [107]. If an athlete experiences sexual violence, the content of social support to overcome this adversity can differ. Some athletes might have needs to be fulfiled through emotional support (e.g., being loved or respected after experiencing sexual violence), and others might need material support (e.g., services to help with practical problems, such as an STD exam) or cognitive support (e.g., information sufficiency to cope with adversities provided by a local organisation). All these different forms of social support can be obtained by multiple systems, including relationships with family members, friends or other actors within the community [108, 109, 110]. For example, parents bonding with their child after experiencing child sexual abuse is powerful in fostering resilience and preventing re-victimisation [111]. Similar effects have been found through the support of fellow survivors. The empathy and belief of other survivors of sexual violence promote resilience in coping with daily life by reducing feelings of isolation, regaining self-esteem and restoring the capacity to maintain and build relationships [112, 113]. All these actors in the social network of the survivor are crucial to the resilience process of the victims to rebuild trust and feel safe again to restore from the violent experience. On the other side, the presence of social support can result in positive outcomes: prevention of sexual violence. Existing literature identified positive parental monitoring [108, 111] and social support from peers [108] as protective factors that decrease the risk of experiencing sexual violence in the first place. From a social learning perspective, an athlete’s familial context contributes to the acceptability of (sexual) violence. Violence will not be normalised by the athlete if the athlete has been raised with beliefs about not tolerating violence. Next to this, forms of positive parental monitoring — such as effective discipline, open communication and knowledge of the athlete’s activities — reduce risks, and thus, serve as a protective factor. When considering these social protective factors, it must be noted that there are other possible protective factors within the (sports) environment of an athlete given the scientific underexposure of resilience to sexual violence in sports. Based on insights gathered from the identified risk factors of Van Voorthuizen’s biopsychosocial profile [16], additional protective factors could be identified in future research. For example, coaches educated about sexual violence, a confidant in a sports club, the presence of parents during practices, or a support organisation, such as the Centre of Safe Sports in the Netherlands [114]. However, the actual potential of these protective factors is yet to be determined by research.

4. Interventions and future recommendations

Whilst altering the vulnerabilities of athletes at risk of sexual violence might be complex, it is valuable to make use of interventions focused on enhancing protective factors. In these interventions, it is important to make use of the existing assets and resources of an athlete and their social environment and increase those [115]. Additionally, to counterbalance possible existing risk factors of athletes with protective factors, interventions should aim to reduce risk factors by focusing on clusters of behaviour as opposed to specific problems. In other words, the athlete at risk and actors in their sports environment should be viewed as holistic and targeted in these interventions. As resilience builds up from childhood and develops further in adulthood, resilience may be fostered among children and young adults through interventions [116]. Due to the complex nature and dynamics of risk and protective factors, it is desirable to prevent risks by intervening in early childhood [95]. Intervening in the resilience capacity of athletes from an early age is — theoretically seen — easy to establish given the number of opportunities since a lot of children become active in sports at a young age. With this, it is important to prevent early interventions from causing (young) athletes to think they are the issue of being at risk of experiencing sexual violence. The goal of these interventions is to change the standards of the sports environment in which athletes participate in sports. In other words, the climate in sports should be developed on a pedagogical base to positively contribute to the athlete’s health, well-being and social cohesion in which resilience can be (further) developed. Once a positive athlete-centred climate is present, athletes can participate in sports with a caring and safe foundation. Ultimately, the climate serves as a protective factor for at-risk athletes experiencing sexual violence in sports.

4.1 Youth sports compass

The darker side of sports is not only formed by experiences of sexual violence. Unfortunately, the scope of the issue is broader since physical and emotional violence also takes place in sports [e.g., [32]]. Currently, the emphasis in sports is too much on performance and winning. Therefore, transgressive behaviours — such as sexual violence — are likely to occur due to actors in sports viewing the athlete as their ‘product’. In other words, the athlete reflects national pride and boosts the coach’s ego (e.g., ‘This is because of me’) after being successful. However, sports should provide (youth) athletes with a great opportunity to develop in many ways. Thus, it is necessary to steer in the present sports climate from a performance culture (focus on winning) towards a performance culture in which the athlete’s holistic development is central.

The youth sports compass is a framework developed by Schipper-van Veldhoven et al. [117], aiming to improve youth sports as a strong developmental context for youth athletes². It is developed to provide a safe sports environment for youth athletes to be implemented by sports clubs in close collaboration with proximate professionals for further support (e.g., municipalities). The compass contains a holistic approach by focusing on the micro, meso and macro levels of the sports community, as well as all possible stakeholders. The base of the compass is formed by theoretical principles⁴ [118], and it contains four pillars (see Figure 2⁵): caring, motivational, developmental and social safety. First, through the caring pillar, actors in sports clubs contribute to the children’s feeling of need to belong by caring for them and acknowledging their worthiness. As an example, social support can be created by building a community by fostering the ‘we-feeling’ among the group of athletes by communicating in terms of ‘we’ to them. Second, the intrinsic motivation and the pleasure of sports participation of youth athletes can be increased through the motivational pillar. One way to contribute to this is if actors within sports clubs (e.g., a coach) apply positive coaching: encourage and support them by emphasising their accomplishments. Third, the developmental pillar is fulfiled once exercises and activities are adjusted to suit the athlete’s performance level. By keeping an eye on the developmental process of the athlete (as opposed to winning and achieving), performance and personal development in the best interest of the youth athlete can be balanced. Lastly, and most importantly, transgressive behaviours (such as sexual violence practices) are prevented if the socially safe pillar of the compass is applied in daily practices at sports clubs. Emphasising sportsmanship and respect for interactions with actors in their social environment is important. For instance, being a behavioural example positively influences the athletes’ attitudes towards others.

Figure 2.

Youth sports compass.

Altogether, the youth sports compass can be of help in determining the course of sports clubs towards a positive and safe sports climate providing protective factors for athletes at risk of experiencing sexual violence. Through this compass, the (pro)social norms of an athlete’s sports environment are reset and serve as a protective factor. Through an (active) implementation of actions within the compass pillars, an athlete’s awareness of transgressive practices increases, contributing to an increase in competence and possibly self-efficacy as well. Simultaneously, the social support system of an athlete is increasing given the holistic approach of the youth sport compass. Ultimately, physical movement is not the only learning method for athletes anymore: athletes are stimulated in their social and mental development as well.

5. Conclusion

The mindset of many actors in the sports community has changed towards demanding higher criteria for the guidance of youth in sports. Therefore, it is now the time to gain further understanding of the risk factors in the biopsychosocial profile, as well as protective factors for athletes at risk of experiencing sexual violence. By identifying these factors, athletes are centred on becoming resilient towards adversities that could be faced while participating in their sports. Ultimately, empowered athletes and increased social support contribute to creating a safe sports environment for athletes.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.