Emotional and Cognitive Processes in Combat and Team Sports: Anxiety, Aggression, Emotion Regulation, Attention, and Creativity

Psychological functioning is central to athletic performance, adaptation, and long-term development. In sport psychology, competitive anxiety, aggression, and emotion regulation are widely recognized as important factors influencing performance under pressure, coping, interpersonal behavior, and well-being. At the same time, cognitive processes relevant to sport performance such as attention and creativity are receiving increasing interest as key contributors to decision-making, attentional regulation, and adaptive performance. In team sports in particular, these processes underpin scanning, anticipation, coordination, tactical flexibility, and the generation of effective and novel solutions during play. Despite this, emotional and cognitive factors are often studied separately, and less attention has been given to how they interact across different sport modalities and athlete populations.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of the emotional and cognitive profiles associated with participation and performance in combat sports and team sports, with a particular interest in comparative perspectives that examine how anxiety, aggression, emotion regulation, attention, and creativity vary according to sport type, gender, age, and expertise level. Combat sports and team sports present distinct psychological demands: combat sports often involve direct confrontation, rapid adaptation, and regulation of arousal and aggression, whereas team sports require shared decision-making, coordination, social regulation, and, in many cases, flexible and creative responses. This Research Topic especially welcomes contributions examining attentional control and creative decision-making in team sports, including situational awareness, anticipation, tactical decision-making, and individual or collective creativity in dynamic game environments. This Topic seeks to bring these dimensions together within a broader sport psychology framework and to support more refined, evidence-based approaches to athlete development, performance support, and coaching practice.This Topic welcomes submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Competitive anxiety, aggression, and emotion regulation in sport• Attention and creativity as performance-related psychological dimensions• Attention, anticipation, situational awareness, and decision-making in team sports• Individual and collective creativity, tactical flexibility, and adaptive play in team sport contexts• Comparative studies across combat and team sports• Differences across gender, developmental stage, and expertise level• Emotional and cognitive factors in youth athlete development, including football• Links with performance, resilience, burnout, well-being, and talent development• Implications for psychological skills training, coaching, and athlete support systemsThis Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, and Hypothesis and Theory articles. Interdisciplinary contributions are encouraged where they advance psychological understanding of athlete functioning in sport. Topic editors: Vladimir Potop, Georgiy Korobeynikov, Wojciech Cynarski Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79665/emotional-and-cognitive-processes-in-combat-and-team-sports-anxiety-aggression-emotion-regulation-attention-and-creativity