ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1661771
This article is part of the Research TopicDeterminants of Achievement in Top SportView all 26 articles
The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience between Parenting Styles and Athletic Performance in Adolescent Athletes: A Serial Multiple Mediation Model
Provisionally accepted
- 1北京师范大学体育与运动学院, 北京市, China
- 2济南市中医医院, 济南市, China
- 3清华大学, 北京市, China
- 4济南市群众体育事业发展中心, 济南市, China
- 5北京体育大学, 北京市, China
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Background: The underrepresentation of family systems in sports development models persists despite evidence linking parenting styles (PS) to athletic outcomes. This study addresses critical gaps by examining the sequential mediation of basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS) and psychological resilience (PR) between PS and athletic performance (AP) in adolescents, grounded in Self-Determination Theory.Methods: A three-wave longitudinal design surveyed 587 competitive adolescent athletes (M~age~=14.2±1.8 years; 45% municipal, 35% provincial, 20% national teams) and their primary caregivers across six Chinese provinces. Validated instruments assessed PS (PSQ-R), BPNS (SABPNS), PR (ARI-25), and multi-source AP indices (CTII). Structural equation modeling tested serial mediation pathways using Mplus 8.7 with 5,000 bootstrap samples.Results: Authoritative PS enhanced AP through sequential improvements in BPNS (β=.58*) and PR (β=.49*), accounting for 45.2% of the total indirect effect (β=.44). Authoritarian PS triggered a detrimental chain: BPNS frustration (β=-.42*) impaired PR (β=-.37*), reducing AP by 0.16 SD. Permissive PS directly undermined AP (β=-.18*). Developmental moderation emerged: athletes aged 15–18 showed 44.8% higher resilience transformation efficiency (β=.42 vs. .29) and stronger serial effects (0.51 vs. 0.33, z=4.25*) than the 12–14 cohort.Conclusion:(1) Family dynamics influence adolescent athletes' development through neuroplasticity-related psychological pathways. Authoritative parenting benefits sustainable performance by satisfying basic needs and enhancing resilience, more strongly in late adolescence.(2) Authoritarian parenting harms long-term participation via unmet needs, reduced resilience and biological costs; permissive parenting directly impairs performance due to poor goal structuring.(3) Findings call for developmentally and culturally appropriate parenting interventions, promoting a biopsychosocial framework centered on family systems in sport psychology.
Keywords: Adolescent athletes, parenting styles, psychological resilience, Basic psychologicalneeds satisfaction (BPNS), serial mediation model
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Chen, Yu, Xian and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tingting Sun, 北京体育大学, 北京市, China
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