Finally, in this relationship a three-way interaction effect was close to being significant (Model 3; b = 0.112, t (32) = 1.998, p = 0.0543 with a 95% CI of -0.002 to.226), thus indicating a slight significant moderated moderation of sailing role, by sex category.
The results showed that there were no differences among athletes in the cortisol awakening levels, measured the day before competition, in relation to age, sex, and role on board, even though bowmen showed an increasing trend in cortisol reactivity, compared to helmsmen ( p = 0.068), which did not reach significance, probably because of the small sample size ( n = 70) included in the analysis.
A further complex matter concerns the effects of sex on HPA functioning, within the above mentioned associations; different sex patterns were reported to be close to significance only in women ( DeSoto and Salinas, 2015 ; Puig-Perez et al., 2016 ), whereas the absence of sex differences occured after controlling the luteal phase ( Kajantie and Phillips, 2006 ; Poppelaars et al., 2019 ).
Likewise, the effect of neuroticism on cortisol tended to be marginally significant and positive in female bowmen.