ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Exploring the Role of Admiration in Mitigating Athlete Burnout: An Emotional Perspective
Weihong Xu 1
Siyu Tian 2
Tao Song 3
Si Chen 4
Yang Pan 5
1. Wuhan Sports University, Wuhan, China
2. Tianjin University of Sport, Tianjin, China
3. Qingdao Badminton and Swimming Sports Management Center, Qingdao, China
4. Shandong University, Jinan, China
5. Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract
Introduction: Athlete burnout presents a significant challenge for adolescent athletes, with profound implications for their mental health and career progression. This study employs an emotional perspective to examine the relationships between admiration, positive affect, negative affect, and athlete burnout, aiming to identify effective strategies for mitigating burnout among this population. Methods: The study utilized the "Admiration Scale", the "Positive and Negative Affect Schedule" and the "Athlete Burnout Questionnaire" to collect data. A total of 1,544 adolescent athletes participated in the study. The collected data were analyzed using three parallel mediation models within the Process macro of SPSS software to elucidate the relationship between admiration and each dimension of athlete burnout, as well as to examine the mediating roles of positive affect and negative affect in this relationship. Results: Admiration had a significant negative relationship with athlete burnout. There were significant differences in the reduced sense of achievement and devaluation of sports practice among the adolescent athletes who took different objects as models of admiration. Positive affect and negative affect indirectly associate the relationship between admiration and athlete burnout (physical and emotional exhaustion, reduced sense of achievement, devaluation of sports practice). Furthermore, the mediating effect of positive affect was stronger than that of negative affect in all three models. Conclusions: Admiration may serve a role in managing symptoms of burnout in the adolescent athlete, and that this effect occurs through the effect on positive affect and negative affect.
Summary
Keywords
admiration, adolescents, Affect, Athlete burnout, emotion
Received
26 November 2025
Accepted
20 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Xu, Tian, Song, Chen and Pan. 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: Yang Pan
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.