The relationship between coaching leadership practices and athlete burnout among college athletes in China: the mediating role of psychological resilience and emotion regulation

As a key indicator in sports psychology reflecting athletes' complex physiological and psychological responses to challenges or threats, athlete burnout has become a focal issue in research on athlete-coach interactions and athletic performance.Objective To investigate the impact of coaches' leadership behaviors on athlete burnout among Chinese collegiate student-athletes and to validate the mediating roles of psychological resilience and emotion regulation in this relationship.Method Using convenience sampling combined with cluster sampling, 519 student athletes from multiple Chinese universities were selected as participants. The study employed the Coach Leadership Behavior Scale, the Burnout Scale, the Psychological Resilience Scale, and the emotion regulation Difficulty Scale for measurement. Data analysis utilized SPSS 21.0 and the Hayes Process macro for correlation analysis and mediation effect testing.Results (1) Significant gender differences emerged: Male athletes exhibited lower levels of psychological resilience and emotion regulation difficulties (i.e., stronger regulation abilities), with significantly lower sports burnout scores than female athletes (P 0.05). (2) Coach leadership behaviors showed a significant negative correlation with athletic burnout (R = -0.543, P < 0.01) and exerted a direct negative predictive effect on burnout (β = -0.276, t = -7.726, P < 0.001). Positive leadership behavior significantly enhanced psychological resilience (β = 0.615, t = 12.956, P < 0.001) and reduced emotion regulation difficulties (β =-0.472, t=-7.929, P < 0.001). Psychological resilience positively predicted emotion regulation levels (β = -0.513, t = 10.696, P < 0.001) and indirectly reduced burnout (β = -0.116, t = -3.857, P < 0.001); Reduced emotion regulation difficulties also significantly decreased burnout (β = -0.160, t = -6.394, P < 0.001); (3) Mediational analysis revealed that psychological resilience and emotion regulation difficulties jointly mediated the relationship between leadership behaviors and athlete burnout. Direct effects accounted for 58.35% of the total effect, while indirect effects accounted for 41.65%. Examining individual pathways: psychological resilience alone mediated 15.01%, emotion regulation difficulties alone mediated 15.86%, and their chained mediation effect accounted for 10.78%. This indicates that positive leadership behaviors alleviate sports burnout through dual pathways: enhancing psychological resilience and reducing emotion regulation difficulties.Conclusion Coaches' positive leadership behaviors significantly reduce athletes' burnout levels by enhancing psychological resilience and reducing emotion regulation difficulties. Psychological resilience and emotion regulation difficulties play crucial chain-mediated roles in this mechanism. This finding expands the theoretical implications of leadership behaviors and mental health in sports psychology, providing an empirical foundation for psychological promotion, fatigue management, and performance enhancement among college athletes. Future research should integrate longitudinal tracking, multi-source data, and AI-based behavioral analysis methods to enhance model explanatory power and generalizability, thereby revealing the dynamic mechanisms linking sports leadership to athletes' psychological adaptation.