ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicDeterminants of Achievement in Top Sport -Volume IIView all 6 articles
Psychological Adaptation Mechanisms of Athletes' Cognitive Resilience in High-Temperature Environments
Provisionally accepted
Huixiang GUAN1
Songchen GAO2*- 1Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, China
- 2Taihu University of Wuxi, Wuxi, China
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This study synthesizes the "Stress and Coping" theory with the "Ordinary Magic" model to advance a sequential "challenge appraisal–resource gain–cognitive resilience" framework, which explicates the psychological adaptation processes underlying athlete cognitive resilience under high‑temperature conditions. It specifically investigates the mediating role of challenge appraisal between psychological resources and cognitive resilience, the moderating effect of team support on this relationship, and the heterogeneous structural configurations of cognitive resilience among athletes. Multidimensional psychological and contextual data were obtained via a questionnaire‑based survey of 240 professional athletes. Analytical approaches—including structural equation modeling, latent profile analysis, and moderated effect testing—were employed to assess the proposed mediation, heterogeneity, and moderation pathways. Results demonstrate that cognitive resilience in high‑temperature environments emerges as a dynamic process driven by cognitive reappraisal and resource coupling. These findings furnish empirical support for targeted psychological interventions and team‑support systems in thermal‑stress sports settings, while also advancing a theoretical transition in sports psychology from a static trait‑oriented view to a systemic "individual‑context" interaction paradigm. This shift underscores the distinctive and complex nature of psychological adaptation mechanisms in extreme environments.
Keywords: Challenge appraisal, Cognitive resilience, High-temperature environment, latent profile analysis, Psychological adaptation, team support
Received: 30 Oct 2025; Accepted: 06 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 GUAN and GAO. 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: Songchen GAO
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