Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how professional eSports players form and maintain their athletic identity through a grounded theory approach. This research aimed to identify the core phenomena experienced by players, the various factors influencing the formation of their identity (causal conditions, contextual conditions, intervening conditions), and the interaction strategies and outcomes associated with this process. Methods: Five professional eSports players currently active in South Korea participated in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The collected data were analyzed according to the grounded theory procedures of Strauss and Corbin(2015), including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, to derive a theoretical model explaining the process of athletic identity formation among eSports players. Results: The analysis produced 18 higher-order categories, 33 subcategories, and 95 concepts. The process of eSports players’ identity formation consisted of causal conditions, core phenomena, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, and interaction strategies. The outcomes were identified as the establishment of identity and changes in career and life trajectory. Conclusion: This study grounded the formation process of professional eSports players’ athletic identity, revealing a complex process in which they reconstruct their self-concept and maintain psychological balance within a performance-oriented competitive environment. The findings demonstrate that athletic identity in eSports is a dynamic structure shaped through the interaction of social relationships, personal commitment, emotional regulation, and future orientation. These results may serve as foundational data for developing systematic psychological support and career management programs for professional eSports athletes.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to systematically synthesize domestic research on metacognition conducted in physical activity contexts through a scoping review, and to comprehensively examine the theoretical approaches and application contexts in which metacognition has been utilized. Method: Korean-language articles published in domestic academic journals since 2000 were identified through searches of KCI, KISS, RISS, DBpia, and Google Scholar. A total of 26 studies were included in the final analysis and coded and analyzed based on the Population-Concept-Context framework. Results: The included studies predominantly focused on athletes and student samples, whereas research on recreational sport participants was relatively limited. Metacognition was most often conceptualized along two axes―knowledge and regulation―and the emphasized functions varied by context. Specifically, elite sport studies highlighted in-performance regulation and strategic use; school physical education studies emphasized planning, monitoring, and evaluation of the learning process; educational/other settings foregrounded reflective thinking and reconstruction of experience; and recreational sport contexts emphasized behavioural regulation for sustaining participation. Conclusion: Domestic research on metacognition in physical activity contexts has shown a gradual increase in recent years but remains concentrated on athlete and student populations. Conceptually, metacognition has largely been structured around knowledge and regulation, with context-dependent variations in its emphasized role. These findings suggest the need to expand future research to recreational and health-related physical activity settings and to further refine context-specific conceptualizations and functions of metacognition.

Purpose: This study aimed to provide practical methodological guidance for using heart rate variability (HRV) in sport and exercise psychology by integrating its physiological foundations, theoretical frameworks, index and wearable device selection, data measurement, processing, analysis, reporting, and research design principles. Methods: An integrative narrative review was conducted. Literature was searched mainly in PubMed, Web of Science, and SPORTDiscus, focusing on HRV, sport and exercise, wearable measurement, methodology, respiration, and HRV biofeedback. Key anchor references included Laborde et al. (2017, 2018), Mosley and Laborde (2024), and Quigley et al. (2024). Results: First, HRV should be understood not as a single physiological value, but as an index of dynamic cardiac, respiratory, and autonomic regulation. Second, theoretical frameworks, including the neurovisceral integration model, vagal tank theory, polyvagal theory, and cognitive-emotion-motor integration model, can guide context-specific HRV interpretation. Third, RMSSD is recommended as a core index of vagally mediated HRV, whereas SDNN may serve as a complementary index and HF, LF, TP, and LF/HF should be interpreted cautiously. Fourth, wearable-based HRV research requires transparent reporting of signal type, raw data accessibility, artifact processing, valid data rate, algorithm transparency, and measurement conditions. Fifth, HRV is most meaningful when interpreted within temporal structures, such as resting-anticipatory-task-recovery or baseline-stress-recovery, together with psychological and behavioral variables. Conclusions: HRV is a useful psychophysiological tool for understanding self-regulation, stress responses, recovery, performance readiness, and breathing-based interventions in sport and exercise psychology. Its value depends on theoretically justified index selection, rigorous preprocessing, transparent reporting of respiratory and contextual factors, and context-sensitive interpretation.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the psychological tensions and performance identity perceptions of yoga instructors while posting performance scenes on Instagram from a phenomenological perspective. Methods: To achieve this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 yoga instructors who had experience posting performance scenes on Instagram and utilizing the platform professionally, using semi-structured interview guidelines. The collected data were analyzed following the thematic analysis procedures of Braun & Clarke(2006). Results: The analysis yielded four themes. First, participants perceived Instagram as a digital resume that demonstrates their professional expertise as instructors. Second, they experienced visibility pressure to post advanced asana poses. Third, they experienced intense self-censorship and psychological exhaustion in the process of posting content. Fourth, they experienced internal conflicts regarding performance identity between the intrinsic values of yoga and the visual logic required by the platform. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrate that Instagram's image-centered structure has a substantial impact on yoga instructors’ psychological tensions and performance identity perceptions. It is expected that these results will expand academic understanding of the psychological experiences of physical practitioners in digital environments and serve as foundational data for reconsidering yoga instructor education and field practice culture.

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the categories of psychological operation types and intentions among football players and to specify the causal relationships between types according to intentions. Methods: An open-ended questionnaire was administered to 62 WK League players registered with the Korea Football Association in 2024 to collect data on psychological operation behaviors used to unsettle opponents during matches and the intentions underlying such behaviors. The collected raw data were categorized into subcategories and general categories through inductive content analysis. By identifying the links between the raw data on psychological operation types and intentions, the cumulative associations between types and intentions were calculated, and the Intentional Typology Causality Ratio (ITCR) was derived. Based on this, the causal relationships between psychological operation types according to intentions were examined. Results: In football matches, psychological operations were classified into four types: performance-show off type, opponent-pressure type, impression-management type, and emotional-provocation type. They were classified into three intentions: neutralizing the opponent’s performance, gaining a competitive advantage and inducing emotional fluctuation. In addition, the ITCR showed that different types of psychological operation emerged according to the players’ intentions. Conclusion: The types of psychological operation used by players can be broadly divided into behaviors aimed at regulating oneself and those aimed at manipulating the opponent, and the proportion of specific psychological operation types varies according to the underlying intentions. These findings suggest the potential for incorporating psychological operation into competitive strategy and indicate the possibility of expanding the scope of sport psychology. Greater attention from the field of sport psychology to psychological operation as a competitive strategy is warranted.

Purpose: This study aimed to reconceptualize rest among college student-athletes as a practical experience of psychological detachment and recovery constructed within a performance-oriented sport environment, and to explore how this experience connects to performance readiness. Methods: A descriptive case study grounded in social constructivism was employed. Data were collected from seven commuting student-athletes enrolled at universities in the Seoul metropolitan area through two rounds of semi-structured in-depth interviews per participant, supplemented by document analysis. Results: Rest emerged as a strategic practice constructed within the interstices of training, academic, and competition schedules; a complex emotional experience in which psychological detachment coexisted with guilt and comparative anxiety; and a formative process generating readiness for re-engagement rather than standing in opposition to performance. Furthermore, these experiences were differentiated by sport type, academic year, and individual positioning, while structural constraints emerged as a partially renegotiable domain. Conclusions: Rest among college student-athletes should be institutionalized as an essential component of the performance system rather than reduced to a matter of individual self-management. Accordingly, there is a need to systematically develop rest literacy that addresses psychological detachment and emotional recovery.