Persons with high neuroticism scores tend to have negative emotions and higher stress levels [1]. Previous studies have found that neuroticism is strongly associated with a propensity to experience negative emotions [2] and indirectly affects human performance, for instance, sports performance [3]. Athletes with a higher level of neuroticism are more likely to experience negative affect and sports anxiety, and these negative emotions can affect performance [4]. In addition, a recent study showed a strong correlation between neuroticism and competitive anxiety [4]. Thus, it is essential to find a coping strategy to reduce sports anxiety among athletes with neuroticism.

Furthermore, Lin et al. [5] proposed one behavioral factor named Principles for Deep Knowledge (PDK) that indirectly affects sports anxiety and performance. They examined 194 athletes and found that athletes who had higher levels of sports performance had higher use of mental skills and thus higher scores on PDK; in addition, PDK had shown positive correlations with mental skills and negative correlations with sports anxiety. An earlier study by Lin et al. [6] indicated females to have higher tendencies toward the principles of Contrasting and Complementing and Cracking and Ripping, and also found positive correlations between exercising habit and the principles of Alternating, Changing and Transforming, and Void. They concluded that the survey of PDKs is a psychometric property. PDKs have been identified by habitual domain (HD) and are one of three practical tools for expanding an individual’s HD [7-11]. HD is defined as each person’s collection of ideas and actions, including thinking, memory, judging, and reacting, for handling situations or problems over a lifetime [12-14]. This collection gradually becomes stable within a certain domain over time, and people have habitual ways of thinking, doing actions, judging, reacting, and behaving. Previous literature has demonstrated that various methods can assist in expanding a person’s HD, including the nine PDKs. The nine principles include The Deep and Down, The Alternating, The Contrasting and Complementing, The Revolving and Cycling, The Inner Connection, the Changing, The Contradiction, The Cracking and Ripping, and The Void. The Deep and Down principle implies going deeply down by lowering the charge structures for the minds to empty any irrelevant thoughts and obtain useful information at the same time [5, 7]. The Alternating principle involves the awareness to remove or add subsets of assumptions in one’s mind and alternating and combining these assumptions [5, 7]. The Contrasting and Complementing principle is the perception of duality, such as existent/nonexistent, known/unknown, good/bad, male/female, and so forth [5, 7]. The Revolving and Cycling principle is to realize that the life cycle moves up and down; each success is constructed from the elements of failures, and likewise, each failure involves the elements of success [5, 7]. The Inner Connection principle builds as many strong connections as possible to the inner core of others [5, 7]. People with an attitude toward the Changing principle are willing to accept any changes to follow the constantly changing world [5, 7]. The Contradiction principle encourages people to look at things from various perspectives and to re-assess any conclusions [5, 7]. The Cracking and Ripping principle is used to identify cracks that consist of old fears, conflicts, or negative attitudes that hinder personal development [5, 7]. People repeat the same set of concepts and procedures named the same HDs to deal with daily life; however, they can not respond effectively when a situation occurs outside of the same HDs. Thus, the Void principle states that the outside of the same HDs is not void, and it can expand HDs by emptying some of the existing HDs and absorbing new HDs into the space [5, 7]. Scholars [7-10, 12-15] proposed a complete description of how these nine PDKs have enriched people’s HD. In a broad sense, the PDKs represent attitudes, which serve as general enduring behavioral tendencies in particular conditions [7], such as learning [6] and training. The PDKs can be the thinking procedures and attitudes used to understand neuroticism’s HD to expand HDs, which leads neuroticisms to avoid any physiological, physical, and psychological symptoms and behaviors related to neuroticism traits [7, 15].

As Yu’s team [7, 9, 10, 15] mentioned, most people are not aware of their own habitual domains and their assessment is of great importance; therefore, the PDKs were introduced as attitudes. These attitudes can produce better assessments to understand and expand peoples’ habitual domains. For example, in athletes with neuroticism, the resulting higher levels of sports anxiety might be caused by the unawareness of any physiological, physical, and psychological symptoms and behaviors related to neuroticism traits. The process of obtaining or creating positive ideas and attitudes for relieving anxiety is a significant function of PDKs. Lin et al. [5] found positive correlations between PDKs and exercise. Further studies [16] have reported PDKs to significantly impact mental skills and concluded that PDKs represent one practical approach to improve and expand athletes’ ability to develop decision-making styles in order to reduce anxiety. However, the impact of PDK on the association between neuroticism and sports anxiety is unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether the association between neuroticism and sports anxiety can be mediated by PDKs.

The current results agree with previous findings on the association between neuroticism and sports anxiety [4], and confirm the distinct effects of gender, with female athletes showing higher levels of neuroticism [3]. The analyses further found a significant correlation between neuroticism and sports anxiety in female athletes. In addition, PDK mediated between neuroticism and sports anxiety in female athletes. Thus, this study adds to the extensive literature on the construct of sports anxiety by identifying variables, such as PDK, that mediate the relationship between sports anxiety and neuroticism in a sample of college athletes, particularly female athletes. We suggest that the five principles, including Alternating, Contrasting and Complementing, Changing and Transforming, Contradiction, and Void should be considered as coping tools to reduce sports anxiety in female athletes who tend towards neuroticism. For instance, an athlete might have perceived previous training demands from the coach as challenging. However, after receiving helpful tips, the athlete will likely make significant improvements using the Alternating principle. According to the principle of Changing and Transforming, athletes willing to change have a better chance of achieving higher goals. A typical example of Cracking and Ripping is a coach’s understanding that the fear of trying a novel approach or takeoff technique can be a distinct crack that can lower the self-confidence of a long jumper. Finally, as Yu [16] mentioned, the Void principle is a very enthusiastic attitude to expand HDs continuously, and the Void becomes even more critical. Female athletes with neuroticism are more anxious and are negatively associated with muscle strength [20]. The Void can help female athletes identify and decrease the six facet-level traits of anxiety, anger, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability. With this principle, HDs of others, such as the mental skills of goal setting, automaticity, emotional control, relaxation, and positive thinking, can enter these female athletes’ minds more quickly and truthfully to reduce sports anxiety [5] and to improve muscle strength. Consequently, these five principles can be developed as five training approaches to avoid attitudes indicative of neuroticism and as potential coping strategies. These propositions can be developed into an outline for future research.

Our current study, however, possesses some limitations. First, the sample was a small group of collegial student athletes; thus, our findings might not extend to other groups or the general population. Second, the cross-sectional design precludes making inferences on the potential impact of neuroticism on sports anxiety. Such causal associations should be examined in a longitudinal study. Further research is especially needed to determine how PDKs affect athletes with neuroticism to reduce sports anxiety and to develop assessment regarding the use of PDK strategies.