# Emotion regulation and psychological resilience sequentially mediate the association between training-related perceived stress and aggressive behavior among sport-major undergraduates

## TL;DR

Training-related stress in sports students can lead to aggressive behavior through poor emotion regulation and low resilience.

## Contribution

This study identifies a sequential mediation pathway from stress to aggression via emotion regulation and resilience in sports undergraduates.

## Key findings

- Higher training-related stress is directly linked to increased aggressive behavior.
- Emotion regulation and psychological resilience sequentially mediate the stress-aggression relationship.
- A direct effect of stress on aggression remains even after accounting for mediators.

## Abstract

Training-related perceived stress may be linked to aggressive behavior in university training environments, yet it remains unclear whether this association is transmitted through emotion regulation and psychological resilience and whether these processes operate sequentially.

In a classroom-cluster convenience sample of sport-major undergraduates from a Chinese university (N = 711), participants completed standard measures with training-anchored instructions assessing perceived stress, emotion regulation, psychological resilience, and self-reported aggressive behavior. Measurement structure was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, and indirect and serial indirect effects were tested with bootstrapped mediation models (5,000 resamples; 95% percentile confidence intervals).

Higher training-related perceived stress was associated with higher aggressive behavior (total effect B = 0.183, 95% CI [0.123, 0.243]). Both emotion regulation and psychological resilience showed significant indirect effects, and a small but robust serial indirect effect through emotion regulation followed by psychological resilience was observed (serial indirect effect B = 0.004, 95% CI [0.001, 0.007]; total indirect effect B = 0.038, 95% CI [0.020, 0.058]). The direct association remained significant after accounting for the mediators (B = 0.145, 95% CI [0.084, 0.207]).

Within training-anchored contexts, perceived stress is linked to aggressive behavior partly through constrained emotion regulation and reduced resilience, consistent with a “regulation-first, resource-next” sequence. These findings suggest a stepped prevention focus on reducing salient training stressors while strengthening emotion-regulation skills and resilience; longitudinal and multi-source studies are needed to test temporal ordering and causal mechanisms.