A cognitive, affective pathway from socially prescribed perfectionism to athlete burnout: the roles of fear of failure and competitive state anxiety in Chinese athletes

PurposeThis study examined whether socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with athlete burnout through a cognitive, affective indirect-effect pattern in Chinese competitive athletes. Fear of failure was conceptualized as the cognitive threat-appraisal component, and competitive state anxiety as the affective competition-proximal component.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was completed by 896 Chinese competitive athletes recruited through provincial and municipal training systems across multiple sports. Participants completed standardized Chinese-language measures of socially prescribed perfectionism, fear of failure, competitive state anxiety, and athlete burnout. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were estimated using maximum likelihood, and indirect effects were tested with bias-corrected bootstrapping (5,000 resamples).ResultsThe hypothesized model showed good fit (χ2/df = 1.995, CFI = 0.977, TLI = 0.975, SRMR = 0.024, RMSEA = 0.033, 90% CI [0.029, 0.037]). Socially prescribed perfectionism was positively associated with athlete burnout (β = 0.28), fear of failure (β = 0.49), and competitive state anxiety (β = 0.11). Fear of failure was positively associated with competitive state anxiety (β = 0.65), and competitive state anxiety was positively associated with athlete burnout (β = 0.58). The direct path from fear of failure to athlete burnout was not significant (β = 0.08, p = 0.170). Bias-corrected bootstrapping showed a significant total indirect effect (β = 0.285, 95% CI [0.233, 0.340]), including significant indirect effects through competitive state anxiety alone (β = 0.061, 95% CI [0.015, 0.113]) and through the serial pathway from fear of failure to competitive state anxiety (β = 0.184, 95% CI [0.140, 0.240]). The indirect effect through fear of failure alone was not significant (β = 0.040, 95% CI [−0.016, 0.100]).ConclusionFindings provide evidence consistent with, but not causal proof of, a cognitive, affective indirect-effect pattern linking socially prescribed perfectionism to athlete burnout. Competitive state anxiety appeared to be a more proximal correlate of burnout than fear of failure alone, suggesting that interventions in evaluative sport environments may benefit from addressing both failure-related threat appraisals and competition-related anxiety.