Tolerance to Uncertainty in Sports Tourism: Experience, Expertise, and Skills for Autonomous Travel

Background. An adaptive attitude toward uncertainty may facilitate goals achievement, however, there is a lack of scientific research on this issue among extreme sport athletes. Sports tourism (ST) is a promising area for investigation of the psychological mechanisms underlying adaptation to extreme stressful environments.

Objective. The goal is to establish the connection between tolerance for uncertainty, route experience, autonomy skills, and experience of autonomy during expeditions among sports tourism athletes.

Study Participants. The study involved 202 sports tourism athletes participating in the Route discipline. Participants were divided into subgroups according to route experience (up to 7 years vs. more than 8 years), autonomy skills (beginner vs. advanced), and experience of autonomy during expeditions (up to 6 days vs. more than 7 days).

Methods. The Tolerance for Uncertainty Scale from Furnham’s New Questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed using the Mann — Whitney U test, Pearson’s χ² test, and a General Linear Model (GLM).

Results. Lower levels of tolerance for uncertainty were observed among athletes with more than 8 years of route experience compared to those with less than 7 years of experience. Similarly, athletes whose expeditions typically lasted more than 7 days demonstrated lower tolerance for uncertainty than participants whose average expedition duration did not exceed 6 days. In the multivariate model, route experience and experience of autonomy during expeditions made statistically significant contributions to the variance in tolerance for uncertainty; however, effect sizes were small.

Conclusions. The hypothesis that athletes with greater experience and higher levels of autonomy skills would demonstrate higher tolerance for uncertainty was not supported. The findings indicate that tolerance for uncertainty is associated with route experience and experience of autonomy during expeditions, whereas autonomy skills were not related to the level of tolerance for uncertainty.

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