Athletes' Use of Chewing-Gum as Psychogenic Aid in Sports Performance

Abstract

The paper focuses on athletes’ use of chewing gum as an ergogenic aid in their sports engagements. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. Four each of research questions and hypotheses were raised to guide the study. A sample of 276 (164 males and 112 females) was purposively drawn from a population of athletes that participated during NUGA preliminaries in 2006. A self-structured validated questionnaire was used for the collection of data. The data collected were descriptively and inferentially analyzed. The findings revealed that: Athletes perceive chewing gum as an efficacious psychological means of adjusting to sports stress and conditions. The level of use of chewing gum by athletes as a psychogenic aid is dependent upon the importance attached to the sports engagement, the less the importance the less the use. Assorted reasons are projected by athletes for using chewing gum as a psychogenic aid. The use of chewing gum as a psychogenic aid favours female athletes more than their male counterparts. The degree of use of chewing gum by athletes as a psychogenic aid discriminates among various sports types.