The key elements and theoretical logic of the cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports

Abstract

At present, participation in winter sports in China faces multi-dimensional cognitive thresholds, which are formed with both the particularity of social and cultural contexts and the complexity of practical contradictions. In view of this, this study uses text analysis to construct a model of the threshold for participation in winter sports. The study found that resource accessibility prediction and environmental facility perception are external elements, while information awareness, cultural compatibility perception and skill fit insight are internal elements. Extrinsic elements not only form the fundamental driving force of intrinsic elements, but also regulate the psychological pathways from cognitive formation to the transformation of behavioral intentions. Each factor has both independent and cumulative effects on the willingness to participate in winter sports. Boost the confidence of potential participants by lowering the cognitive threshold. Dig deep into the theoretical model of key elements of the cognitive threshold shape to provide a theoretical framework for the subsequent development of participation in winter sports.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-47455-0.

Introduction

Against the backdrop of the successful hosting of the Beijing Winter Olympics, China is vigorously promoting the development of winter sports. From the “Winter Sports Development Plan (2016–2025)”to the “Implementation Outline for Getting 300 Million People Involved in Winter Sports (2018–2022)”, from the “Opinions on Vigorously Developing Winter Sports with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics as an Opportunity” to the “Several Opinions on Stimulating the Vitality of the Winter Sports Economy through High-Quality Development of Winter Sports” Driven by a series of policies, winter sports are moving across the country¹.

Although the goal of “three hundred million people participating in winter sports” has been achieved, the number of people who can participate in winter sports regularly is still very limited. Even in the mature market of winter sports in Canada, there are problems of market decline and loss of participants².Mobilizing the enthusiasm of all participants in society to effectively break down the “threshold” for participation in winter sports³ is the top priority for promoting the sustainable development of winter sports.

The threshold, as a manifestation of individuals’ inner states within a social context, fundamentally represents the subject’s psychological receptivity to the external environment. This receptivity establishes cognitive boundaries at the conscious level. When such boundary consciousness permeates the domain of thought, it evolves into a “cognitive threshold” with a screening function, serving both as a gateway mechanism for knowledge acquisition and as a concrete instantiation of thinking patterns. Individuals at this threshold often experience an inner conflict—oscillating between progression, retreat, and hesitation—reflecting the profound influence of the cognitive threshold on behavioral decisions. In this study, the cognitive threshold is defined as an individual’s holistic subjective perception of the non-physical barriers and psychological costs that must be overcome to adopt and sustain a specific behavior, such as participation in winter sports, prior to making a behavioral decision. Existing theoretical frameworks—such as the concept of “psychological disorder”⁴ and “perceived behavioral control”⁵ in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)⁶, or “self-efficacy” in Social Cognitive Theory—primarily focus on individuals’ perceived capability to perform a behavior or their emotional apprehension. In contrast, the concept of “cognitive threshold” proposed in this study offers a more integrated and process-oriented perspective. It encompasses not only ability assessments and emotional responses but also highlights the internal cognitive impediments encountered during information processing and decision-making—subtle yet critical mechanisms that traditional behavioral variables often fail to capture. Accordingly, this study systematically investigates cognitive-level barriers to participation in winter sports, aiming to provide theoretical support for the broader popularization of such activities.

Previous studies related to winter sports have mainly focused on macro-level policy orientation⁷, industrial development⁸ and educational integration⁹, or micro-level individual participation motivation¹⁰, behavioral intention¹¹ and continuous participation mechanism¹². In the existing literature, only a few studies have addressed participation limitations¹³, but they have focused more on objective limitations such as time, interpersonal, and economic, rather than subjective hindrances at the cognitive level. Although some scholars’ research involved cognitive factors¹⁴ to explore the mediating role of difficulty perception between internal-external motivation and ice and snow participation behavior, it was through quantitative mediating effect analysis, and the conclusions were limited to the relationship between variables. As a result, most of the above studies have focused on “how to promote participation”, and less on “why it is difficult to participate” and “what hinders participation at the cognitive level”.

In response to these deficiencies, this study aims to construct a model of key elements of cognitive thresholds for participation in winter sports. This model will engage in dialogue and integration with the theory of planned behavior and self-determination, with a focus on the following question: What are the cognitive thresholds for participation in winter sports? What are the key components? What are the intrinsic connections among the elements? For this purpose, this study will dig deep into the theoretical model of cognitive threshold formation based on in-depth interview data, with the aim of providing an analytical framework with a theoretical foundation for the subsequent development of participation in winter sports.

Literature review

Research related to winter sports is mainly reflected in the following four perspectives.

First, the policy and strategy perspective focuses on institutional, planning and resource allocation at the national, regional or industrial level, and studies policy promotion¹⁵, regional development and industrial layout¹⁶. For example, Macrae and EHR’s¹⁷ assessment study of the UK’s “Olympic Legacy” program found that the policy dividends of major events would have very limited impact on mass participation if they were not effectively translated into accessible resources and specific projects at the community level. These studies highlight the linkage mechanism between winter sports policies and national macro strategies, but lack in-depth exploration of the psychological, cognitive and behavioral mechanisms of individuals or groups at the micro level.

Secondly, from the perspective of public participation motivation and behavior, individual motivation¹⁸, satisfaction and willingness to continue participating in winter sports are analyzed at the micro level. This perspective is mostly based on mature behavioral theory frameworks such as planned behavior theory, which holds that behavioral intention is determined by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control together; As well as self-determination theory, which emphasizes the driving effect of basic psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, and belonging on intrinsic motivation. While these studies explain the drivers of engagement from the motivational side, they fail to conduct a systematic counterpoint analysis from the hindering factors, particularly cognitive thresholds.

Third, from the perspective of education and extension, study of winter sports in schools¹⁹ and adolescent participation pathways²⁰. Although this perspective is committed to promoting policy implementation, its core still focuses on “how to promote”, but it generally neglects the key mechanism involving individual cognition of “why promotion is hindered”. For example, some studies emphasize curriculum standardization and competitive performance, weakening students’ perceived behavioral control in TPB and their intrinsic sense of competence in SDT, thereby constructing cognitive thresholds for participation. In contrast, the model centered on “play and fun,” which supports students’ autonomy and sense of competence, has been proven effective in lowering the cognitive threshold in practice, but has not been fully explained in existing theoretical discussions.

Finally, the industry and market perspective focuses on macro issues such as the development opportunities^21,22, consumer behavior²³ and event operation²⁴ of the winter sports industry. Although this perspective has achieved remarkable results in analyzing the market structure, it generally neglects the cognitive psychological mechanisms of the participants. In fact, international research has repeatedly shown that the underlying logic of industrial development is inseparable from individual cognitive decisions. For example, the psychological connection framework proposed by Jeon, J et al.²⁵ reveals that the cognitive barriers faced by individuals in the “perception” stage are the primary link in determining the market base; Jia²⁶ further pointed out that consumers’ perception of the safety and inclusiveness of the venue environment directly affects behavioral attitudes in the TPB and the need for a sense of belonging in the SDT. Although the high consumption nature of winter sports is an objective limitation, whether consumers are willing to adopt the “negotiation strategy” still depends on whether the satisfaction of psychological needs obtained through participation exceeds the perceived cost. Existing research still lacks systematic attention to the intrinsic mechanisms that connect macro markets with micro cognition.

In summary, although some achievements have been accumulated in the research on participation in winter sports, the exploration in the cognitive dimension remains weak. Most of the existing literature focuses on “how to promote participation”, and there is a certain deficiency in the attribution analysis of “why it is difficult to participate at the cognitive level”. Therefore, based on in-depth interviews, this study refines the theoretical framework of “cognitive thresholds” from participants’ narratives, aiming to integrate international behavioral theories with local practical contexts, systematically reveal the formation mechanism of cognitive thresholds in winter sports participation, and enhance the explanatory power and theoretical transfer value of the research topic in different social and cultural contexts.

Methodology

Instruments

At present, participation in winter sports in China faces multi-dimensional cognitive thresholds, which are formed with the particularity of social and cultural contexts and the complexity of practical contradictions. However, existing research has mostly focused on the question of “how to promote participation”, lacking a systematic theoretical construction of “what hinders participation at the cognitive level”. Qualitative research can deeply capture the subjective narrative and contextualized experience of participants to reveal the key elements and interrelationships of cognitive thresholds; Through stepwise encoding and dynamic comparison of multi-source qualitative data, the limitations of “phenomenon description” can be broken through, and theoretical models of cognitive barriers to participation in winter sports can be refined. Therefore, this study systematically summarizes and logically refines the key elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports through programmed grounded theory, using the research paradigm of “open coding - main axis coding - selective coding”, and ultimately constructs the theoretical framework of the cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports.

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Taiyuan University of Technology (Approval Number: TYUT2025101507; Date: October 15, 2025).We confirm that all methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Sample and procedures

A purposeful sampling strategy was used in this study to select a total of 32 participants in winter sports as subjects (see Table 1). Data collection was mainly based on field interviews, supplemented by interviews on the wechat online platform. In the context of universal digital participation, the information exchange and experience sharing of the winter sports community are highly dependent on the wechat ecosystem, enabling interviewers to quickly obtain immediate feedback from respondents and facilitating extensive coverage of participants from different regions and backgrounds. In-person interviews, on the other hand, capture embodied details of practice, helping to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ real thoughts, emotional experiences, and behavioral motivations. Cross-validation of the two forms a cognitive map of data. The multi-source data cross-validation mechanism effectively avoids the bias of a single information source and enhances the interpretive validity of the research conclusions.

Table 1.

Basic information of respondents (N = 32).

Variables	Category	Number of people	Percentage
Regional distribution	Northern traditional region	17	53.0%
	emerging southern regions	15	47.0%
Professional background	student	6	18.8%
	Office worker/company clerk	12	37.5%
	Freelancer	4	12.5%
	Retirees	3	9.4%
	Others	7	21.8%
Degree of participation	Beginner (participation ≤ 3 times per year)	14	43.8%
	Advanced enthusiasts (at least 10 participations per year)	11	34.4%
	Senior enthusiast	7	21.8%
Interview style	In-person field interviews	22	68.8%
	Online wechat interviews	10	31.2

Specific Content of Data Composition and Collection Methods: First, offline interview data. The study selected Chongli in Hebei Province as the empirical anchor point. This region, as a host venue for the Winter Olympics, embodies the typical contradiction of “transforming competitive venues for public use.” From mid-to-late November 2024 to early March 2025, over 120 events were held in the area, 70% of which were mass-participation events. In 2025, the average number of ski resort visitors surpassed 10 million, making it a representative case study. The research team conducted a three-day participatory observation in 2025 and carried out semi-structured interviews with 22 ski resort visitors. Second, online interview data. The data is derived from in-depth interviews (including text/voice/video formats) with 10 participants added on wechat, with a total of more than 500 cognitive narratives recorded by the participants. To clarify the screening mechanism for online respondents, the study set clear inclusion and exclusion criteria. In terms of inclusion criteria, respondents must meet the following conditions: (1) be 18 years old or older; (2) Have participated in at least one winter sport in the past year; (3) Be able to communicate effectively via wechat. Exclusion criteria include: (1) temporary participants who only have a one-off experience and have no willingness to continue participating; (2) Relevant practitioners engaged in professional training or teaching of winter sports.

Through interviews, the original dialogue context is retained throughout, covering the entire narrative chain including participation motivation, perceived hindrance, and consumption decisions; The samples cover three types of scenarios: natural ski resorts in Northeast China, indoor snow houses in the south, and urban ice and snow experience centers, presenting cognitive differences; The interview texts are both real-time interactive and reflective (respondents mostly use “pre - and post-participation” cognitive contrast statements), which can meet the depth requirements of the research. During the interview, always maintain an objective and neutral stance, avoid giving the interviewee a guiding suggestion, and ensure that they can freely express their true thoughts.

Reliability and validity assurance in research

To ensure reliability and validity, this study strictly followed the principle of typicality and representativeness and selected winter sports participants from different regions, industries, genders, ages and years of participation as interviewees. During the interviews, the way questions were presented was uniform to ensure that all respondents had a consistent understanding of the questions; At the same time, cross-verify key issues with both direct and implicit questioning, supplemented by brief observation notes to record non-verbal information. After each interview, the audio was transcribed into text in a timely manner, and some respondents were called back one and a half months later to reduce the random error that might result from a single interview.

During the data analysis phase, three researchers independently encoded the text, and then cross-referenced the coding results through collective discussion, repeatedly deliberated the disputed coding content until a consensus was reached to ensure consistency and objectivity of the coding. Two experts in the relevant field were invited to review the construct validity to further ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the encoding analysis.

Data analysis

Open coding

Open coding is the gradual conceptualization and categorization of qualitative data to form more concepts and categories through repeated comparisons²⁷. In this study, Nvivo12 software was used to process all the collected interview data. First, the obtained data were organized, classified and encoded, and the original statements related to participation in winter sports were extracted for summary. Second, the initial concepts were developed by comparing, analyzing and summarizing the statements formed by the initial coding, merging and organizing them to derive 30 initial concepts. Third, the categories were refined. Categories are the further refinement of concepts, formed by the aggregation and refinement of multiple concepts with the same orientation. Ultimately, 15 initial categories are produced (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Open coding.

Main category	Father node	Child node
A1 Perception of economic costs	B1 Elevated cost pressure	b1 Equipment costs
		b2 Training fees
	B2 Concerns regarding hidden costs	b3 Transportation expenses
		b4 Accommodation charges
		b5 Coaching fees
A2 Awareness of skill-related barriers	B3 Apprehension of technical complexity	b6 Fall Injury risk
		b7 Professional guidance
	B4 Steep learning curve	b8 Long-term practice
		b9 Short-term experience
A3 Obstacles to information accessibility	B5 Limited promotional channels	b10 Promotion information
		b11 Winter olympics period
	B6 Regional information asymmetry	b12 Southern venues
		b13 Participation locations
A4 Cultural identity differences	B7 Cross-regional cultural conflicts	b14 Exclusive to northern regions
		b15 Southern region awareness
	B8 Reinforcement of stereotypes	b16 Elite sports
		b17 General public
A5 Facility accessibility	B9 Uneven distribution of sports venues	b18 Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities
		b19 Professional ice rinks
	B10 Seasonal constraints	b20 Winter climate conditions
		b21 Southern region promotion
A6 Security concerns	B11 Risk of sports-related injuries	b22 Ice surface conditions
		b23 Fracture risk
	B12 Lack of insurance coverage	b24 Ski resort insurance
		b25 Rights protection
A7 Lack of social support	B13 Insufficient peer participation	b26 Companion
		b27 Individual participation
	B14 Absence of Community-Based Organizations	b28 Winter sports activities
		b29 Experience opportunities
A8 Ambiguity in policy perception	B15 Inadequate policy promotion	b30 Subsidy policies
		b31 Inquiry
	B16 Efficacy Evaluation of Implementation	b32 Snow sports promotion in schools
		b33 Basic equipment
A9 Family influence	B17 Familial financial constraints	b34 Academic remedial courses
	B18 Intergenerational value conflicts	b35 Obsession with frivolities impairs ambition
		b36 Guardian attitudes
A10 Media portrayal	B19 Overemphasis on elitist imagery	b37 Professional athletes
		b38 Eligibility criteria
	B20 Entertainment-oriented narrative deviation	b39 Stylish
		b40 Risk factors
		b41 Cost considerations
A11 Time costs	B21 Scheduling conflicts with study time	b42 Weekend time
		b43 Traveling for skiing
	B22 Seasonal time limitations	b44 Winter
		b45 Skill atrophy
A12 Physical condition constraints	B23 Anxiety over physical fitness requirements	b46 Leg strength
		b47 Physical fitness
	B24 Concerns regarding age appropriateness	b48 Joints of middle-aged and elderly people
		b49 Old injury
A13 Deficiencies in the education system	B25 Curricular gaps in school programs	b50 Physical education classes in primary and secondary schools
		b51 Ice and snow pedagogy
	B26 Insufficient teacher professional competence	b52 Physical education instructor
		b53 Ice-skating proficiency
A14 Environmental controversies	B27 Apprehensions about ecological disruption	b54 Artificial snow facilities
		b56 Water consumption
	B28 Skepticism toward sustainability claims	b57 Climate
		b58 Global warming
A15 Identity conflict	B29 Perception as a class-based symbol	b59 Skiing equipment
		b60 Symbol of ostentation
	B30 Regional identity exclusion	b61 Southerners
		b62 Cultural identity

Axial coding

The task of principal axis coding is to develop the nature and dimension of categories and to discover the underlying logical connections between categories, thereby developing the principal categories and their subcategories²⁸. This study explores the key elements and logical relationships of the cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports, categorizing different categories based on their inherent logical connections at the conceptual level. The essence of the cognitive threshold is “the hindrance of subjective cognition to behavior,” even if certain hindrances (such as A1 economic cost) are objectively present, they become part of the cognitive threshold when individuals give up participation due to negative perceptions of these conditions (such as “thinking the equipment is too expensive” or “thinking they can’t learn it”). This study focused on “what hinders participation at the cognitive level” and ultimately summarized the following five main categories (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Model of key elements of cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports.

Selective coding

Selective coding refers to identifying a core category after systematic analysis of all found categories, stringing all other categories into a whole, and incorporating most of the research results into a broader theoretical range. The canonical relation structure of the main category of this study is listed in Table 3. Ultimately, all phenomena are attributed to “key elements and theoretical logic of the cognitive threshold for participation in winter sports”, making it a core category.

Table 3.

Typical relationship structure of the main categories.

Typical relationship structure	Definition
Information awareness → cognitive threshold	Information awareness refers to an individual’s comprehensive ability to acquire, understand, and process information related to winter sports, and its level determines the strength of the formation of cognitive thresholds through direct influence paths
Perception of cultural compatibility → cognitive threshold	Cultural compatibility perception, as a key element of the psychological cognitive layer, reflects the fit between an individual’s values and the culture of winter sports, and directly affects the cognitive threshold through internal causal relationships
Insight into Skill Adaptability → Cognitive Threshold	Skill fit insight refers to an individual’s assessment of the fit between their athletic ability and the requirements of winter sports, directly hindering participation behavior through internal causal relationships
Resource accessibility prediction → Information awareness → cognitive threshold	Resource accessibility predictions are external factors that influence the formation of cognitive thresholds, and these factors change the strength and direction of the association between information awareness and cognitive thresholds
Perception of environmental facilities → information awareness → cognitive threshold	Environmental facility perception is an external factor that influences the formation of cognitive thresholds, and these factors significantly affect the strength and direction of the association between information perception and cognitive thresholds

Saturation test

To test the theoretical saturation of the cognitive threshold model for participation in winter sports, no new concepts or categories were identified after the 30th interview and confirmed in the subsequent two interviews, thus determining theoretical saturation. In addition, we handed over the coding results and the model to two experts in the field, and received positive feedback from them, indicating that the theoretical model shown in Fig. 1 passed the theoretical saturation test.

An explanation of the model of key elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports

Prediction of resource accessibility

The perception of economic costs and the subjective resources of time costs together constitute the prediction of resource accessibility for participation in ice and snow sports sports.

Economic cost, as an embodiment of objective resource constraints, has a dual-dimensional connotation in the scenario of participation in ice and snow sports sports. From an objective perspective, it covers the entire chain of financial input required for participation in ice and snow sports sports, mainly including four core elements: basic consumption (such as ticket and venue fees), equipment purchase cost (expenditure on professional equipment and protective gear), skill improvement investment (systematic training fees), and derivative expenditure (transportation, accommodation and other supporting expenses). In the subjective cognitive dimension, economic cost refers to the degree to which participants perceive the actual amount of money spent²⁹, which is manifested as a comprehensive evaluation system of the value perception sensitivity of participants to the above-mentioned rigid expenditures and their actual payment ability. This complex economic pressure directly affects the decision-making threshold and the formation of continuous participation behavior of the general public in ice and snow sports sports.

Time cost means that when a participant spends a certain amount of time doing something, they cannot use that time to do other things, which requires the participant to make a pre-assessment of the activity they are going to engage in and decide whether to start or continue it³⁰. The time cost of participation in ice and snow sports sports is a subjective resource. It is not only the actual length of time that participants need to invest, but also involves an individual’s assessment of the value of time, subjective judgment of time allocation priorities, and the psychological game between time investment and expected returns. First, it is found in the coding that the vast majority of participants make “worthwhile” trade-offs within a limited time, especially for time-sensitive groups such as office workers, students, and housewives, and this trade-off directly determines participation behavior. Secondly, ice and snow sports sports often require long-term learning to be enjoyable, such as mastering balance, braking skills, etc. If participants estimate the learning period to be too long, they may worry that “the time invested will not lead to the expected experience” and thus choose to give up.

Perception of environment and facilities

Facility accessibility and environmental disputes together constitute the environmental facility perception of awareness of participation in ice and snow sports sports.

Facility accessibility refers to the availability and convenience in physical space and practical use of venues, equipment, infrastructure, etc. required for participation in ice and snow sports sports. Compared with developed countries, China has relatively insufficient per capita facilities for ice and snow sports. First, China hosts a relatively small number of high-level international ice and snow sports sports events, has insufficient standard venues, and its ice and snow sports sports infrastructure is far inferior to that of developed countries; Second, there are a large number of small and medium-sized ski resorts, but they are small in scale, with outdated infrastructure and insufficient enjoyable skiing experiences.

Environmental disputes have led to the dissolution of the significance of ice and snow sports sports. The issue of water consumption and ecological damage in man-made ski resorts has led some environmentally sensitive groups to create a cognitive paradox that “skiing pleasure is built on environmental pain.” This value conflict has led them to actively reduce their participation frequency and even use the reduction in skiing consumption as a “moral proof of a low-carbon life.”

Awareness of information

Obstacles in information acquisition, media shaping and ambiguous policy perception constitute the information awareness of participation in ice and snow sports sports. The essence is that the basic path for the masses to come into contact with ice and snow sports sports culture is blocked or deviated. The study code found that information accessibility and media narrative frameworks significantly affected participants’ cognitive depth and willingness to continue participating in ice and snow sports sports. Among people with unobstructed access to information, respondents tend to have a systematic grasp of the technical essentials and self-safety measures of ice and snow sports sports, thereby achieving stable participation expectations. For example, “I learned a lot of skills from the live broadcast of the Winter Olympics, I have a clear understanding of the venue reservation information, and I feel more at ease when putting in equipment.” Such people have a more positive attitude towards ice and snow consumption and tend to view financial investment as a long-term interest investment. However, for potential participants constrained by information barriers, the media’s overemphasis on professional thresholds or risks, such as the tendency to report that “ordinary people can’t learn without falling a dozen times”, reinforces their cognitive biases and leads to cost fears when participating in decision-making. The typical manifestation is an excessive sensitivity to necessary expenses such as skiing training and equipment rental, and even the consumption rationality that “occasional experiences are not worth spending money on specifically.” This cognitive divergence reveals the deep constraints that the information ecosystem imposes on the popularization of ice and snow sports sports.

At the same time, factors such as economic disparity and unequal educational attainment in the social structure also affect the participation of the general public in ice and snow sports sports³¹. Relatively poor regions may not be able to afford the high costs of ice and snow sports sports, while regions with lower educational attainment may lack understanding and interest in ice and snow sports sports. This hindering has led to significant regional and class divisions in the popularity of ice and snow sports sports, especially in remote areas or among low-income groups, where ice and snow sports sports are still regarded as “high-threshold” activities. To break this deadlock, systematic intervention is needed to bridge the gap between resources and cognition. Policy perception refers to an individual’s measurement of the usefulness and accessibility of a policy, as well as their attitude towards how to use the policy³². “Policy perception ambiguity” can be understood as a state of uncertainty, inaccuracy and ambiguity in an individual’s understanding and perception of a policy when measuring its usefulness and accessibility and forming an attitude towards how to use it, due to insufficient information, ambiguous language expression, unclear policy objectives or means, etc. Participants in ice and snow sports sports are divided into ice and snow sports sports practitioners and the general public. ice and snow sports sports practitioners can accurately interpret policies through professional channels, while the general public often misjudge participation costs or ignore policy dividends due to information barriers, resulting in resource misallocation and differentiation of participation willingness.

Perception of cultural compatibility

Cultural identity differences, family influences, identity conflicts, lack of social support, and the absence of an education system together form the cultural threshold for the perception of participation in ice and snow sports sports, which is essentially the value conflicts and meaning breaks caused by the imbalance of the embedding of ice and snow sports sports culture into the social structure.

The research code shows that the differences in symbolic interpretations of ice and snow sports sports among different groups have formed differentiated participation logics, cultural identity differences show regional fragmentation, ice and snow sports sports are regarded as “ice and snow sports life rituals” in the northern regions with deep traditional ice and snow sports culture, and their technical acquisition and equipment consumption are endowed with the significance of cultural inheritance; Southern participants, on the other hand, are more likely to face the “cultural grafting dilemma in a snow-free environment” and need to make up for the regional cultural absence through symbolic consumption. The strength of this cultural rooting directly affects the willingness to pay a spiritual premium for the participating behavior.

Family influence shows an intergenerational transmission mechanism. The original family has a longitudinal binding force on the cognitive shaping of ice and snow sports sports. Members of families where their parents defined skiing as a “dangerous and useless luxury game” showed a stronger sense of guilt in equipment purchase decisions; Families with a tradition of ice and snow sports sports relieve the moral pressure of consumption through intergenerational gifts of snowboards passed down from generation to generation.

The symbolic segmentation of identity conflicts, the technological nature of ice and snow equipment and the class nature of venue services have led participants into a cognitive rift of “professional player - tourist check-in”. Some respondents belittled themselves for “being looked down upon by coaches for wearing domestic snow suits”, while others built their “ice and snow nobility” status by purchasing top-tier equipment, creating a symbolic alienation of “not daring to enter the high lane without buying limited editions”.

Systemic structural exclusion due to the lack of social support and the absence of community infrastructure for ice and snow culture create obstacles to participation in the cold start. When ice and snow sports sports are not included in the “community public life list”, individual participants have to bear the entire chain cost from knowledge acquisition to equipment purchase alone, leading to the reinforcement of moralized cost accounting logic such as “the money for snow goggles is enough for the family to spend half a year on food”.

The absence of the education system refers to the structural shortcoming that ice and snow sports sports cannot be effectively integrated into the national education system due to deficiencies in curriculum design, teacher allocation, facilities and long-term mechanisms in the popularization of ice and snow sports sports in schools, thereby restricting the cultivation of ice and snow sports sports literacy among teenagers and the expansion of the participation base. The “14th Five-Year Plan for Sports Development”³³ proposed to create 80,000 traditional sports characteristic schools by 2025, but as of 2020, there were only 1026 traditional ice and snow sports sports characteristic schools, which were far from meeting the strategic needs of the development of ice and snow sports sports in Chinese schools in terms of speed and scale.

Insight into skill fit

Skill threshold cognition, safety concerns, and physical condition limitations constitute the technical threshold of awareness of participation in ice and snow sports, which is essentially the efficacy anxiety caused by the athletic ability assessment system and the visualization of physical capital. The research code shows that the technical hindrance reconstructs the cost-benefit accounting logic of participants through a triple path.

Skill threshold cognition is the cognitive oppression of the cost of skill acquisition. The complex technical system of ice and snow sports, such as tool manipulation and center of gravity shifting, creates the impression of “professional monopoly”, leading to the efficiency anxiety of “practicing for three months before daring to take the intermediate track”. This cognitive bias intensifies the time discounting tendency of participants, prompting them to compress equipment consumption into “transitional investment” and even develop a consumption delay strategy of “renting to try first and buying if they can persist”.

Safety concerns are perceived alienation of safety risks. Media reports of skiing accidents and the lack of personal protection knowledge create a risk amplification effect. To counter the stigmatizing fear that “a fall is equivalent to a poor skill”, participants responded in two extreme ways: some groups shifted the risk through defensive consumption of “buying all the armor before going on the snow”, while others fell into a cycle of participation withdrawal where “the more afraid, the less daring to practice”.

Physical limitations are a symbolic discipline of physical capital. The explicit demands for strength and flexibility in ice and snow sports, along with the “ski body aesthetics” shaped by social media, jointly create physical rejection. Overweight people avoid purchasing equipment due to the imaginative stigma of “it’s so embarrassing to break the snowboard”, while female participants often reduce their participation frequency due to aesthetic anxiety that “skiing tanning affects appearance level”, creating a market malformation where “experiential consumption dominates, skill-based consumption collapses”.

Logical relationship analysis.

In this study, through systematic coding and analysis of the original interview data, a key element model regarding the cognitive threshold for public participation in ice and snow sports was constructed. In this model, resource accessibility prediction and environmental facility perception are the basic external layers of ice and snow sports, while information awareness, cultural compatibility perception and skill fit insight are the psychological cognitive layers of ice and snow sports sports participation. The interactions among the elements are shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Logical relationship model.

First, the basic external layer, including resource accessibility prediction and environmental facility perception, as key elements, directly acts on the formation of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports through external causal relationships, and to some extent affects individuals’ information awareness of ice and snow sports, perception of cultural compatibility, and insight into skill fit. Further, the inner layer of psychological cognition includes information awareness, perception of cultural compatibility, and insight into skill fit. The elements interact through internal causal relationships and close correlations, and together they converge into the “cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports”. Crucially, the basic external layer plays a moderating role in the entire cognitive-decision-making chain, and good resource conditions and facility perception can effectively buffer the negative effects of psychological cognitive factors on the participation threshold, thereby reducing the psychological barriers to participation. To sum up, this model shows that the external environment not only constitutes the fundamental driving force of cognitive construction, but also regulates the psychological path from cognitive formation to the transformation of behavioral intention.

Discussion

The cognitive threshold model of ice and snow sports participation constructed in this study systematically reveals the intrinsic hindrance mechanisms that affect public sustained participation at the cognitive level. The theoretical value of the model lies in breaking away from the peripheral perspective of “how to promote” in traditional research and starting from the psychological core of “why it is hindered”.

This model complements the theories of planned behavior and self-determination. The underlying external layer factors identified in the model, such as the prediction of resource accessibility and the perception of environmental facilities, are actually anacedent variables that affect “perceived behavioral control” in TPB³¹; Psychocognitive factors, such as information awareness, perception of cultural compatibility, and insight into skill fit, profoundly shape the formation of behavioral attitudes. In the case of SDT^32,33, the skill fit insight revealed by the model is directly related to the satisfaction of the “competency need”, while the perception of cultural compatibility affects the realization of the “relational need”, which provides a more refined analytical framework for understanding the activation mechanism of intrinsic motivation in participation in ice and snow sports sports.

At the practical guidance level, the multi-level structure feature of this model requires that the corresponding intervention strategies must have the characteristics of systematic integration and coordinated advancement. The basic outer layer, as a key intervention area, needs to directly reduce the primary participation barriers constituted by economic and time costs through price subsidy mechanisms and facility network optimization; At the psychological cognitive level, cognitive biases caused by information asymmetry should be systematically corrected through the establishment of diversified information dissemination channels; Further, through the cultivation of community culture and step-by-step skills training, the mutual reinforcement relationship between the lack of cultural identity and the fear of skills should be addressed simultaneously. This multi-level collaborative intervention framework provides a systematic practical path for achieving sustainable development of ice and snow sports in the “post-Olympic era”.

Conclusions

This study, using grounded theory methodology, conducted stepwise coding and systematic analysis of the data of 32 participants in ice and snow sports sports and reached the following conclusions:

1. The key elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports are divided into five categories: prediction of resource accessibility, perception of environmental facilities, awareness of information, perception of cultural compatibility, and insight into skill fit. Among them, resource accessibility prediction and perception of environmental facilities are external elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports, while information awareness, perception of cultural compatibility and insight into skill adaptation are internal elements.

2. Prediction of resource accessibility and perception of environmental facilities are external elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports. Resource accessibility prediction mainly includes economic cost perception and time cost; Environmental facility perception mainly includes facility accessibility and environmental disputes.

3. Information awareness, cultural compatibility perception and skill fit insight are intrinsic elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports. Information awareness includes information access barriers, media shaping, and policy perception ambiguity; Perception of cultural compatibility includes differences in cultural identity, family influence, conflicts of identity, lack of social identity, and absence of an education system; Skill fit insights include awareness of skill thresholds, safety concerns, and physical limitations.

4. The study found that the five key elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports sports are both independent of each other and have a superimposed effect, and have an independent impact on participants in ice and snow sports sports.

Limitations and suggestions for further research

The cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports is the core issue that restricts the transformation of ice and snow sports from “experiential participation” to “habitual participation”. Although this study summarizes its key elements and lays a theoretical foundation for its development, there are still deficiencies due to the limitations of the research scope. While, as a qualitative research method, grounded theory based on multi-source interview data facilitates the identification of new concepts and theories, it requires further refinement in terms of reliability and validity. Subsequent quantitative empirical research will be conducted to validate and extend the findings of this study³⁴.

Specifically, the sample size of this survey is limited, and the external validity of the research results needs to be verified through a larger-scale survey. This study builds a theoretical framework for a model of key elements of the cognitive threshold for participation in ice and snow sports, but it is still an empirical study. Future research could be based on this theoretical framework to improve the openness and quantification of the measurement scale. Further cross-regional comparative analyses will be conducted to explore the differences in the applicability of key element models of cognitive thresholds in different regional cultural contexts, thereby providing more timely theoretical support for the promotion of global ice and snow sports sports.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study meaningfully, providing feedback on the interpretation of the results and on the writing of the paper. J.C. was responsible for the overall conception and design of the study, the execution of field research and in-depth interviews, the collection of major data, and led the preliminary collation and analysis of the data using Nvivo 12 software, and wrote the first draft of the paper. Y.Y. was responsible for the systematic literature review, assisted in data collection, and participated in the independent coding, analysis and result interpretation of the interview materials throughout the process, and made substantial revisions and improvements to the first draft of the paper. X.Z. provided key support during the research design stage, mainly responsible for the validation and reliability and validity test of the research data, independently completed the coding work in the data analysis, led the design of the theoretical model diagrams in the paper (Figs. 1 and 2), and made important revisions to the structure and expression of the manuscript.

Funding

Shanxi Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Key Project (2025ZD063, 20,000 RMB).

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.