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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Sport Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1656847

This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Factors in Physical Education and Sport - Volume VIView all 15 articles

Social Support, Social Anxiety, Psychological Resilience, and Antisocial Behavior in Sports among College Students:A crosssectional study

Provisionally accepted
Xi  ChenXi ChenYi  LiYi Li*Junkai  ZhengJunkai Zheng
  • Guangzhou college of applied science and technology, Guangzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This study explored the relationship between antisocial behavior in sports among college students and social support, as well as the mediating mechanisms of social anxiety and psychological resilience on antisocial behavior in sports. Using a simple random sampling survey method, we collected data from 1,421 college students aged 18-24 (female = 604, 42.51%) in Guangzhou and Zhaoqing, China. The Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), the Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior Scale in Sports (PABSS), the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) were utilized. The research demonstrates that social support negatively predicts antisocial behaviors in sports (β = -0.108, p < .05), with social anxiety serving as a significant mediator (β = -0.096, p < .05). Psychological resilience moderates three key relationships: between social support and social anxiety (β = -0.237, p < .05); between social anxiety and antisocial behavior (β = 0.173, p < .05); and between social support and antisocial behavior (β = -0.198, p < .05). To bolster social support, an integrated tripartite support network (athlete-coach-psychological coach) is recommended. Mechanisms such as structured event retrospectives may enhance psychological resilience, whereas mindfulness training and cognitive restructuring interventions could target social anxiety reduction, thereby potentially attenuating antisocial behaviors.

Keywords: social support, Antisocial Behavior in Sports, social anxiety, psychological resilience, College student

Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 14 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Li and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yi Li, Guangzhou college of applied science and technology, Guangzhou, China

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