Basic Psychological Needs and Sports Satisfaction Among Brazilian Athletes and Coaches: The Mediating Role of the Dyadic Relationship.

Andressa Ribeiro Contreira,Patrícia Aparecida Gaion,Nayara Malheiros Caruzzo,Luciane Cristina Arantes Da Costa,Sandro Victor Alves Melo,Lenamar Fiorese,José Roberto Andrade Do Nascimento Junior

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02543

Abstract

Even though sport satisfaction has proved an important element for youngsters to keep practicing sports, little is known on the sport satisfaction of coaches. Moreover, the coach-athlete relationship is acknowledged as a key element for sport success, but whether its importance is the same for coaches and athletes is yet to be investigated. Our study analyzed the mediating role of the coach-athlete relationship in associating the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and sport satisfaction of Brazilian coaches and athletes. 364 coaches and athletes participated in the study representing 182 dyads from different sports according to the following instruments: Basic Needs Satisfaction Sport Scale (BNSSS), Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire, athlete and coach versions (CART-Q), and the Athletic Satisfaction Questionnaire (ASQ). Data analysis followed a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with a significance level of p < 0.05, generating results in which the mediating model for coaches was not adequately fit, while the direct model, without mediation, was adequately fit and explained 48% of sport satisfaction variance. For athletes, the mediating model has shown adequate fit and explained 81% of the sport satisfaction variance, leading us to conclude that the quality of the coach-athlete relationship can be considered a determining factor for the satisfaction of young Brazilian athletes’ basic psychological needs as well as sport satisfaction, but proved not as relevant to their coaches.

Highlights

Studies in the high-performance sport context have intensively focused on factors to contribute to the well-being of athletes considering that the environment favors tense situations and emotional alterations (Balaguer et al, 2012)
Such evidence is supported by the micro theory of Basic Psychological Needs (Deci and Ryan, 2012), which states that social environments conducted by significant persons favor the satisfaction of athletes’ basic needs for providing them with psychological experiences that positively affect their motivation and performance (Balaguer et al, 2012; Deci et al, 2013; González et al, 2015)
Our study considers the importance of motivational aspects for athletes’ satisfaction and the impact of social psychology in the sport context (Jowett and Poczwardowski, 2007) and seeks to improve the scientific knowledge discussing the implications in the dyadic relationships to promote positive psychological aspects for coaches and young Brazilian athletes taking into account affective, cognitive, and behavior aspects, representing the gap investigated in our study per se

Summary

Introduction

Studies in the high-performance sport context have intensively focused on factors to contribute to the well-being of athletes considering that the environment favors tense situations and emotional alterations (Balaguer et al, 2012). Recent studies have indicated that when feeling independent to control emotions and truly connected to a social environment through the support of their coaches, athletes are more likely to reach selfdetermined motivation and feel satisfied with their sports (Deci et al, 2013; Reynoulds and Mcdonough, 2015; Gurrola et al, 2016) Such evidence is supported by the micro theory of Basic Psychological Needs (Deci and Ryan, 2012), which states that social environments conducted by significant persons (such as teachers, coaches, parents) favor the satisfaction of athletes’ basic needs for providing them with psychological experiences that positively affect their motivation and performance (Balaguer et al, 2012; Deci et al, 2013; González et al, 2015). Athletes’ satisfaction favors the development of group cohesion (García-Calvo et al, 2014; Kim and Cruz, 2016), intrinsic motivation (Mageau and Vallerand, 2003; Cranmer and Sollitto, 2015), establishment of effective communication (Sullivan and Gee, 2007; Kao and Tsai, 2016), and well-being (Kim and Cruz, 2016; Jowett et al, 2017)

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