Facing power: Exploring the impact of toxic coach-athlete interactions in sports through Virtual reality

Power is conceptualised by Foucault (1991) not merely as domination, but as a dynamic relational force that circulates within social systems. Rather than being held by a single actor, power operates through everyday interactions, social norms, and dominant discourses, shaping what is perceived as “normal”, “necessary”, or “acceptable” behaviour (Haandrikman & Schipper-van Veldhoven, 2024). Within sports, these disciplinary power structures are deeply embedded in coach-athlete relationships, where authority, surveillance and control are woven into training routines, performance evaluations, and behavioural expectations.

This risk arises when athletes internalise these disciplinary norms, learning to equate obedience, control, and even punishment with dedication or success. In such contexts, toxic leadership emerges as a pattern of psychologically harmful behaviour by coaches or team leaders that gradually erodes athletes’ safety (Lundqvist et al., 2025). These practices are often legitimised through euphemistic language – for example, framing verbal aggression as “mental toughness” – and sustained by a performance-based value system that prioritises achievement over welfare. Consequently, power becomes normalised as control, and transgressive behaviour becomes invisible within a culture that glorifies results.

Raising awareness of these underlying power mechanisms is essential to disrupt their normalisation within sport. Increasing athletes’ awareness strengthens their psychological resilience, enabling them to recognise, question, and resist coercive dynamics in coach-athlete relationships. Simulation-based interventions, such as Virtual Reality, offers a powerful tool to enhance moral and emotional literacy, allowing athletes to experience and reflect on complex power relations in a safe environment. This heightened understanding fosters empowerment and agency, contributing to the prevention of transgressive behaviour by challenging and transforming the deeply rooted, unhealthy power structures that often persist in sports.

This project contributes to the emerging research field of VR-based educational tools for safe sport initiatives. It explores how immersive technologies can be used to increase awareness and resilience among athletes in response to toxic leadership power dynamics. The thesis is split into two assignments, each addressing a distinct level of social interactions:

1. Individual focus: To examine how athletes perceive and emotionally respond to one-on-one VR-based scenarios of toxic coach-athlete interactions, and how this experience influences their awareness and resilience.
2. Group focus: To examine how athletes perceive and emotionally respond to team-based VR scenarios of toxic coaching practices, and how this exposure influences their awareness and resilience.

Power, Toxic Leadership, Coach-athlete Relationship, Virtual Reality, Sports

The overall aim is to investigate how Virtual Reality-based 360-degree video simulations of toxic leadership in sports can be used to raise awareness and strengthen resilience among athletes.

Sub-aims RQ 1 (individual focus):

• How do athletes perceive and emotionally respond to VR simulations of one-on-one toxic coach-athlete interactions?
• How does exposure to such scenarios influence their awareness of power misuse and their perceived resilience?

Subaims RQ 2 (group focus):

• How do athletes perceive and emotionally respond to VR simulations of group-based toxic coach-athlete interactions?
• How does exposure to such scenarios influence their awareness of power misuse and their perceived resilience?

Mixed method with a between-subjects experimental design using video stimulus material and a standardised questionnaire.

Quantitative analyses (e.g., ANOVA or regressions) & qualitative analyses (e.g., thematic analysis)

Please contact Lynn Weiher (l.weiher@utwente.nl) when you are interested in this assignment. The assignment is open to two students (one assigned to the individual focus and one assigned to the group focus). 

• McGee, S., Kerr, G., Atkinson, M., & Stirling, A. (2024). “I always just viewed it as part of sport”: Psychological maltreatment and conformity to the sport ethic. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2024.2414002
• Fournier, C., Parent, S., & Paradis, H. (2022). The relationship between psychological violence by coaches and conformity of young athletes to the sport ethic norms. European Journal for Sport and Society, 19(1), 37-55. https://doi.org/10.080/15138171.2021.1878436
• Lundqvist, C., Camps, J., Vertommen, T., Barker-Ruchti, N., & Kolbeinsson, Ö. (2025). Toxic leadership in high-performance sports and its consequences for mental health and performance: a scoping review. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2025.2457038
• Haandrikman, M., & Schipper-van Veldhoven, N. (2024). Building European Safe Sports Together: a conceptual framework of transgressive behaviour. Erasmus+ Project. https://research.utwente.nl/files/354565500/BESST_WP1_Report_final.pdf [Only chapter 2]