Basic Psychological Needs, Burnout and Engagement in Sport: The Mediating Role of Motivation Regulation

Constantino Arce,Elisa Isabel Sánchez-Romero,María Del Pilar Vílchez Conesa,Cristina De Francisco

doi:10.3390/ijerph17144941

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to analyze the mediating role of motivational regulation between the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and burnout and engagement in athletes. From different sports 1011 young Spanish athletes participated in the study. Participants completed several measurement instruments concerning: the Basic Needs Satisfaction in Sport Scale, Behavioral Regulation in Sport Questionnaire, Athlete Burnout Questionnaire and Athlete Engagement Questionnaire. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs has direct effects on burnout and engagement: a negative effect on athlete burnout (–0.49, p < 0.001) and a positive effect on engagement (0.54, p < 0.001). In addition, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs has a partial indirect effect over these variables in the same direction mediated by the self-determined degree of motivation. Thus, low levels of self-regulated motivation are positively related to burnout, but high levels of self-determined motivation are not. The same was observed with engagement, but vice versa: high levels of self-determined motivation are positively related to athlete engagement, but low levels of self-determined motivation are not. The proposed model explained 37% of the variance of burnout and 51% of the variance of engagement.

Highlights

Sport burnout is a multidimensional syndrome characterized by the physical and psychological exhaustion derived from the demands of training and competition, which tends to decrease athletes’performance [1,2]
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is one of the theoretical frameworks used to explain the origin of athlete burnout [3,4], so studies that relate motivation to sport burnout have increased in recent years [5,6,7]
The results showed that satisfaction of BPN had direct effects on self-determined motivation, in the sense that it is positively related to high self-determined motivation, and negatively related to low self-determined motivation

Summary

Introduction

Sport burnout is a multidimensional syndrome characterized by the physical and psychological exhaustion derived from the demands of training and competition, which tends to decrease athletes’performance [1,2]. SDT establishes that motivation is composed of six behavioral regulating factors, ranging from higher to lower self-determination: intrinsic regulation, integrated regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation and amotivation [8,9,10]. In this sense, self-determination refers to an innate tendency towards optimal engagement with the environment, such that voluntary and volitional engagement promotes psychological well-being and, in contrast, an interaction controlled by the environment tends to generate personal distress [11]. Framed within SDT is the theory of Basic Psychological Needs

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion