Edited by: Sergio Machado, Salgado de Oliveira University, Brazil
Reviewed by: Laura Catherine Healy, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom; Emmanouil Georgiadis, University of Suffolk, United Kingdom
This article was submitted to Movement Science and Sport Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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Motivation has been the subject of much research in the sport psychology literature, whereas athlete mental health has received limited attention. Motivational complexities in elite sport are somewhat reflected in the mental health literature, where there is evidence for both protective and risk factors for athletes. Notably, few studies have linked motivation to mental health. Therefore, the key objective of this study was to test four mental health outcomes in the motivational sequence posited by the Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: motivational climate → basic psychological needs → motivation → mental health outcomes. Elite team-sport athletes (140 females, 75 males) completed seven psychometric inventories of motivation-related and mental health variables. Overall, the athletes reported positive motivational patterns, with autonomous motivation and task climate being more prevalent than their less adaptive counterparts. Elevated depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality affected nearly half of the cohort. Structural equation modeling supported pathways between motivational climate, basic needs, motivation, and mood, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and trait anxiety. Specifically, a task climate was positively associated with the three basic psychological needs, and an ego climate was positively associated with competence. Autonomy and relatedness had positive and negative associations with autonomous and controlled forms of motivation, respectively. Controlled motivation regulations were positively associated with the four mental health outcomes. Integrated regulation had a negative association with anxiety, and intrinsic regulation had a positive association with depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the complexities of and interrelations between motivation and mental health among athletes, and support the importance of considering mental health as an outcome of motivation.
Motivation is a key determinant of behavior in sport. It is a complex construct, with athletes having diverse and dynamic motives for initiating, directing, sustaining, and terminating effort. Athletes can be motivated by internal or external factors, or a combination of both, which may vary by context and time. Due to the longstanding and widespread interest in motivation, researchers have developed theories, evaluated social-environmental factors, identified universal antecedents, and studied other related variables in an effort to understand motivation. The current study contributes to this vast body of work and provides practical applications for elite athletes by encompassing all of these areas within the framework of the Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation (HMIEM).
The HMIEM is an extension of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), which addresses the why of behavior, as well as its antecedents and consequences (Deci and Ryan,
The HMIEM provides a framework for understanding the determinants and consequences of motivation at the global (personality), contextual (life domain), and situational (state) levels (Vallerand,
Social-environmental factors are collectively called the motivational climate (Ames,
The motivational climate influences motivation through its impact on the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Vallerand,
Much evidence points to the associations between motivation and important outcomes across a range of life domains. For example, motivation is related to interest and dropout intentions in education (Gillet et al.,
There has been a recent upsurge in mainstream interest in athlete mental health, particularly at the elite level (Uphill et al.,
The literature indicates that anxiety, poor mood, depression, and disturbed sleep persist in elite sport, and are of interest to most stakeholders because they can impair performance. Notably, these mental health issues have also been linked to elements of the HMIEM (e.g., motivational climate, Abrahamsen and Pensgaard,
Against this backdrop, the key objective of this study was to use structural equation modeling (SEM) to integrate four mental health outcomes into the motivational sequence posited by the HMIEM: motivational climate → basic psychological needs → motivation → mental health outcomes. It was hypothesized that: (1) a task motivational climate would be positively associated with basic psychological needs; (2) an ego motivational climate would have no association or a negative association with basic psychological needs; (3) basic psychological needs would be positively associated with autonomous forms of motivation, and negatively associated with controlled forms of motivation; (4) controlled forms of motivation would be positively associated with mental health outcomes; and (5) autonomous forms of motivation would be negatively associated with mental health outcomes.
Team-sport athletes (
Eliteness calculations for athletes according to Swann et al. (
Women's soccer | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.08 | Competitive-elite |
Women's rugby | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.08 | |
Men's soccer | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.08 | |
Women's soccer | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3.50 | Semi-elite |
Women's basketball | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2.08 | |
Women's hockey | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2.08 | |
Women's Gaelic football | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2.00 | |
Women's basketball | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1.25 | |
Men's rugby | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2.92 | |
Men's hockey | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2.08 | |
Men's hurling | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1.67 |
The protocol was approved by the University Ethics Committee, and all participants provided written informed consent prior to participation. Seven psychometric inventories were then administered online the following week using Survey Monkey (
Motivation was measured using the 18-item Sport Motivation Scale II (SMS-II; Pelletier et al.,
Athletes' perceptions of their competence, autonomy, and relatedness were measured using the Basic Need Satisfaction in Sport Scale (BNSSS; Ng et al.,
Athletes' perception of the motivational climate typically experienced on their teams was assessed using the 33-item Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire II (PMCSQ-II; Newton et al.,
Total mood disturbance (TMD) was measured using the Profile of Mood States-Brief (POMS-B; McNair et al.,
Depressive symptom severity was assessed using the 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self Report (QIDS-SR; Rush et al.,
Sleep quality was measured using the 19-item Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI; Buysse et al.,
Trait anxiety was measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory–Y2 (STAI-Y2; Spielberger et al.,
SPSS Statistics 21.0 and MPlus Version 7.4 were used for the analyses. Athletes' scores for the inventories were summarized using descriptive statistics, and Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to quantify associations between variables (0.10 is small, 0.30 is moderate, and 0.50 is large; Cohen,
Descriptive statistics and correlations are presented in Table
Descriptive statistics and correlations for study variables.
IR | 4.93 | 1.40 | ||||||||||||||
InteR | 4.81 | 1.38 | 0.658 |
|||||||||||||
IdR | 4.76 | 1.48 | 0.746 |
0.760 |
||||||||||||
IntrR | 3.76 | 1.30 | 0.471 |
0.554 |
0.551 |
|||||||||||
ExR | 2.21 | 1.18 | 0.149 |
0.198 |
0.216 |
0.417 |
||||||||||
NR | 1.60 | 0.89 | −0.344 |
−0.312 |
−0.241 |
−0.021 | 0.292 |
|||||||||
Com | 5.38 | 1.10 | 0.357 |
0.408 |
0.358 |
0.141 |
−0.031 | −0.314 |
||||||||
Aut | 5.38 | 0.93 | 0.453 |
0.470 |
0.391 |
0.141 |
−0.131 | −0.414 |
0.714 |
|||||||
Rel | 5.57 | 1.05 | 0.287 |
0.301 |
0.243 |
0.206 |
−0.006 | −0.164 |
0.477 |
0.492 |
||||||
TC | 4.15 | 0.46 | 0.409 |
0.332 |
0.336 |
0.173 |
−0.057 | −0.207 |
0.464 |
0.564 |
0.461 |
|||||
EC | 2.44 | 0.63 | −0.153 |
−0.039 | −0.078 | 0.017 | 0.175 |
0.201 |
−0.088 | −0.314 |
−0.156 |
−0.494 |
||||
TMD | 9.90 | 12.39 | −0.036 | 0.002 | 0.009 | 0.214 |
0.263 |
0.316 |
−0.092 | −0.118 | −0.086 | −0.131 | 0.086 | |||
Dep | 5.33 | 3.00 | −0.034 | −0.123 | −0.018 | 0.062 | 0.146 |
0.395 |
−0.189 |
−0.204 |
−0.165 |
−0.103 | 0.174 |
0.454 |
||
SlQ | 5.33 | 2.40 | 0.075 | 0.026 | 0.097 | 0.178 |
0.199 |
0.243 |
−0.096 | −0.058 | −0.052 | −0.111 | 0.151 |
0.445 |
0.559 |
|
Anx | 39.31 | 8.62 | −0.129 | −0.184 |
−0.057 | 0.091 | 0.276 |
0.435 |
−0.336 |
−0.288 |
−0.244 |
−0.242 |
0.183 |
0.426 |
0.580 |
0.438 |
Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.61–0.85 for the SMS-II subscales, with values for introjected (α = 0.61), external (α = 0.68), and non (α = 0.68) regulations falling just below the acceptable 0.70 cut-off (Nunnally,
In support of the key objective of this study, the SDT-based model including mental health outcomes showed acceptable fit to the data (Figure
SDT-based model of motivational climate, basic psychological needs, motivation, and four mental health outcomes. Only significant pathways shown. β represents the size and direction of associations between variables. T/E C, task/ego climate; Com, competence, Aut, autonomy, Rel, relatedness; IR, intrinsic regulation; InteR, integrated regulation; IdR, identified regulation; IntrR, introjected regulation; ExR, external regulation; NR, non regulation; TMD, total mood disturbance; Dep, depressive symptoms; SlQ, sleep quality; Anx, trait anxiety.
In support of hypothesis 1, task climate had a large positive association with competence (β = 0.56), autonomy (β = 0.54), and relatedness (β = 0.51).
In partial support of hypothesis 2, ego climate was not associated with autonomy or relatedness, but had a small positive association with competence (β = 0.19).
In partial support of hypothesis 3, autonomy had a small-to-moderate positive association with intrinsic (β = 0.38), integrated (β = 0.34), and identified (β = 0.22) regulations, and a small-to-moderate negative association with external (β = −0.24) and non (β = −0.41) regulations. It was not significantly associated with introjected regulation. Furthermore, relatedness had a small negative association with identified regulation (β = −0.26), and a small positive association with introjected regulation (β = 0.17). Lastly, there were no significant associations between competence and any motivation regulation.
In support of hypothesis 4, there were small-to-moderate positive associations between introjected regulation and TMD (β = 0.21), external regulation and anxiety (β = 0.16), and non-regulation and each mental health outcome (TMD, β = 0.27; depressive symptoms, β = 0.41; sleep quality, β = 0.25; anxiety, β = 0.34).
In partial support of hypothesis 5, there was a small negative association between integrated regulation and anxiety (β = −0.20), but also a small positive association between intrinsic regulation and depressive symptoms (β = 0.18). Identified regulation was not significantly associated with any mental health outcome.
Grounded in SDT and extending previous motivational research, the key objective of this study was to test a model with hypothesized relationships between motivational climate, basic psychological needs, motivation, and four mental health outcomes. The present findings support this model, in which TMD, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and trait anxiety comprise part of the motivational sequence posited by the HMIEM. Furthermore, the hypothesized associations in the model were partially supported. Overall, the athletes reported positive motivational patterns, with autonomous motivation and task climate being more prevalent than their less adaptive counterparts, and high (above the midpoint) basic needs satisfaction. From a mental health perspective, depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality were reported by nearly half of the cohort. The findings fill a gap in the literature by revealing relationships between traditional elements of the HMIEM and novel outcome variables. Importantly, the study may also help to solve real-world problems for athletes experiencing poor motivation, mental health, or performance.
The current results indicate that motivational climate had significant associations with basic psychological needs. A task climate had positive relationships with competence, autonomy, and relatedness, which is consistent with previous research on its adaptive effects (Reinboth and Duda,
Basic needs were significantly associated with some, but not all, motivational regulations. Firstly, autonomy was significantly associated with five of the six motivational regulations. Specifically, the magnitude and direction of these associations were in line with the self-determination continuum, such that they progressively decreased from intrinsic regulation to non-regulation, and turned from positive to negative as there was a shift from autonomous to controlled motivation. The influence of autonomy on autonomous motivation reinforces original work on basic needs, as does the inverse relationship between autonomy and controlled motivation (Deci and Ryan,
The hypothesized relationships between motivation regulations and mental health outcomes were partially supported. Thus, the findings simultaneously extend theoretical knowledge and provide potential avenues for improving these variables among athletes. The three controlled forms of motivation were positively associated with mental health outcomes, reinforcing longstanding research of the maladaptive effects of such motivation (Deci and Ryan,
Turning to autonomous motivation, the negative association between integrated regulation and trait anxiety echoes SDT research, in that increased self-determination tends to produce adaptive outcomes (Deci and Ryan,
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine associations between motivation and four mental health outcomes in the HMIEM. Therefore, it makes a significant contribution to a well-established area in the literature. In addition to motivation being essential for optimal performance, this study provides supportive evidence for the link between motivation and mental health. Given the constant emphasis on performance and emerging emphasis on mental health in modern sport, the current findings provide particularly important implications within and beyond the playing field. Evidently, it is important for coaches, parents, et cetera to consider the athletes' motivation when assessing their risk for poor mental health. Moreover, understanding athletes' mental health may better elucidate the underpinnings of their motivation. The significant associations between controlled forms of motivation, and elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms and poor sleep quality and mood provide further evidence of the maladaptive influence of non-self-determined motivation. Therefore, given the links between motivational climate and motivation, coach-centered interventions could be fruitful avenues for positive change for athlete motivation and mental health. Additionally, educational workshops targeting athletes could be beneficial to generate greater understanding in this area. The results could also contribute to athlete development and high-performance strategies devised by governing bodies. For example, psychological monitoring could be made a compulsory component for national teams that meet for irregular and discrete blocks of time (e.g., training camps, tournaments), but otherwise spend extensive and unsupervised periods outside the team environment.
Although this study contributes to the motivation literature by incorporating aspects of mental health, it has several limitations. Firstly, causality cannot be addressed because of the lack of temporal sequence resulting from its cross-sectional design. Experimental or longitudinal designs would allow causal inferences to be made, and are, therefore, warranted for future research. Secondly, only one mental health outcome exceeded its cut-score for the cohort, suggesting that it was a predominantly healthy cohort. Therefore, future research with athletes who have a clinical mental health diagnosis may reveal different relationships to those presented in the SEM (e.g., larger beta values between controlled forms of motivation and mental health outcomes). Thirdly, measurement of psychological needs thwarting would be useful given its association with controlled forms of motivation (e.g., Healy et al.,
This is the first study to concurrently investigate four mental health outcomes within the HMIEM among elite athletes, thereby addressing a gap in the literature and providing novel practical implications. Though the cohort displayed predominantly positive motivational patterns, the mental health results were less adaptive. That is, the potentially distress-buffering effects of athletic-involvement were not conclusively supported. In terms of the study's key objective, a model showing relationships between motivational climate, basic psychological needs, motivation, and TMD, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and anxiety was supported. Thus, this study supports and extends previous research in sport psychology. Specifically, a task climate was positively associated with the three basic psychological needs, and an ego climate was positively associated with competence. Autonomy and relatedness had positive and negative associations with autonomous and controlled forms of motivation, respectively, while competence was unrelated to any motivation regulation. Controlled motivation regulations were positively associated with the four mental health outcomes, with non-regulation having the largest effect. Integrated regulation had a negative association with anxiety, but intrinsic regulation had a positive association with depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the complexity of motivation and mental health in sport, and support the importance of considering mental health as an outcome of motivation.
This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations for human subjects research from the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee. The protocol was approved by the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the University of Limerick (2014_12_31). All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
RS, MH and MC have satisfied all the criteria for authorship: Substantially contributing to the study's conception, and interpretation; drafting and revising the work; approving the version to be published; agreeing to be accountable for the work.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.