Abstract
Mental health problems are prevalent among athletes, necessitating research to identify ways to promote athletes’ willingness to seek help. Negative social norm perceptions, which pertain to the perceptions that help-seeking is uncommon and/or unacceptable, are a barrier to athletes’ help-seeking. This study aimed to increase athletes’ help-seeking intentions through a descriptive social norm-message intervention. A sample of 234 college athletes were randomly assigned to one of three groups: control, gender-neutral social norm message, and gender-matched social norm message, with participants in the latter two groups being informed that help-seeking is common among college athletes. A one-way ANOVA of responses from those who passed manipulation check (N = 154) showed no main effect of group assignment on help-seeking intentions, F(2, 151) = 0.89, p = .411, Mcontrol = 3.78 ± 1.51, Mneutral = 3.80 ± 1.75, Mmatched = 3.41 ± 1.71. After accounting for attitudes, stigma, and previous help-seeking experience, participants’ estimates of college athletes who seek help for mental health concerns (i.e., descriptive social norm perceptions) were not associated with help-seeking intentions, b = .01, p = .109. However, bivariate correlations showed that participants’ estimates of college athletes’ help-seeking were positively associated with their attitudes, stigma, and help-seeking intentions (rs = .19-.25). The findings suggest that a one-time social norm message may not be sufficient to change athletes’ help-seeking intentions. Further, although social norm perceptions from other athletes may not directly relate to athletes' help-seeking intentions, they may relate to athletes’ broader cognitions and perceptions regarding help-seeking.
