TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal associations between athletes' controlled motivation, ill-being, and perceptions of controlling coach behaviors
T2 - A Bayesian latent growth curve approach
AU - Stenling, Andreas
AU - Ivarsson, Andreas
AU - Hassmén, Peter
AU - Lindwall, Magnus
N1 - Funding Information:
Andreas Stenling was supported by grants from Umeå School of Sport Sciences and the Swedish National Centre for Research in Sports (CIF), grant numbers P2014-0043 and P2015-0114. The authors would like to thank Anna Yttergård for assisting with the data collection.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - Although many scholars have argued that leadership is a dynamic process jointly produced by leaders and followers, leadership in sports is most often researched as a unidirectional process from coaches to athletes. Within self-determination theory (SDT), individual characteristics are suggested to influence how people perceive external events such as coaches' behaviors. In the present study, we examined this jointly produced leadership process by investigating longitudinal associations between athletes' controlled motivation, ill-being, and perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors at the between- and within-person levels. The participants were 247 young elite skiers enrolled at Swedish sport high schools who responded to self-report questionnaires at three time points over the course of an athletic season. At the between-person level, increases in perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors over the season positively predicted controlled motivation at the end of the season, and controlled motivation at the beginning of the season positively predicted ill-being at the end of the season. At the within-person level, athletes' controlled motivation positively predicted perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors. The results at the between-person level support the unidirectional perspective and the tenets of SDT. The results at the within-person level suggest that individual characteristics such as motivation can influence how athletes perceive external events, which has been proposed theoretically but seldom examined empirically. Three plausible explanations for this reversed association are presented in the discussion.
AB - Although many scholars have argued that leadership is a dynamic process jointly produced by leaders and followers, leadership in sports is most often researched as a unidirectional process from coaches to athletes. Within self-determination theory (SDT), individual characteristics are suggested to influence how people perceive external events such as coaches' behaviors. In the present study, we examined this jointly produced leadership process by investigating longitudinal associations between athletes' controlled motivation, ill-being, and perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors at the between- and within-person levels. The participants were 247 young elite skiers enrolled at Swedish sport high schools who responded to self-report questionnaires at three time points over the course of an athletic season. At the between-person level, increases in perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors over the season positively predicted controlled motivation at the end of the season, and controlled motivation at the beginning of the season positively predicted ill-being at the end of the season. At the within-person level, athletes' controlled motivation positively predicted perceptions of coaches' controlling behaviors. The results at the between-person level support the unidirectional perspective and the tenets of SDT. The results at the within-person level suggest that individual characteristics such as motivation can influence how athletes perceive external events, which has been proposed theoretically but seldom examined empirically. Three plausible explanations for this reversed association are presented in the discussion.
KW - Bayesian estimation
KW - Depression/anxiety
KW - Growth models
KW - Interpersonal control
KW - Leadership
KW - Sports
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85015661965&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.psychsport.2017.03.002
DO - 10.1016/j.psychsport.2017.03.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85015661965
SN - 1469-0292
VL - 30
SP - 205
EP - 214
JO - Psychology of Sport and Exercise
JF - Psychology of Sport and Exercise
ER -