Author: Keita Kinoshita

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

Participation in sport has well-documented physical, psychological and social benefits that can lead to positive youth development (c.f., Eime, Young, Harvey, Charity, & Payne, 2013; Hebert, Møller, Andersen, & Wedderkopp, 2015; Vandell, Larson, Mahoney, & Watts, 2015) as well as youths' thriving (Zarrett & Lerner, 2008). However, evidence continues to demonstrate that the number of sport participants in Canada and Japan continues to decline (Canadian Heritage, 2013, Statistics Canada, 2019; Nippon Junior High School Physical Culture Association, 2017). Such trends indicate the importance of understanding the psychological factors and the mechanisms of the relationships which may be important in determining how to keep young people in sport and optimally functioning. As thriving has been a popular topic in psychology research for two decades (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), recent evidence suggests that the concept of thriving is a positive predictor of desired outcomes such as retention, well-being, and performance (e.g., Porath, Spreitzer, Gibson, & Garnett, 2012; Ren, Yunlu, Shaffer, & Fodchuk, 2015). Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017), a well-cited tenet explaining human motivation and function, has concomitantly been utilized to explain the relationship between motivational factors and thriving (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Spreitzer & Porath, 2014). Since motivation is a key element for sport continuation and positive functioning (Roberts, 2012), the current dissertation focused on the investigation of the psychological mechanism underlying youth athletes' thriving by examining self-determination theory. The overall purpose of this dissertation was to examine the psychological mechanism underlying thriving within a youth sport context. To do so, the current dissertation involved three different studies. Study 1 investigated the mechanism underlying youth athletes' thriving with specific consideration regarding personal predictable factors and the consequences. Study 2 tested the buffering effect of mental toughness on the negative indirect relationships between basic psychological need thwarting and important outcomes for youth athletes' positive functioning (intention to continue, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress) through thriving. Study 3 examined how personal and social factors are related to thriving, in turn associating with important outcome variables of interest. In Study 1, the results revealed that basic psychological need satisfaction are positively associated with intention to continue in sport, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress through thriving. Furthermore, both hedonic and eudaimonic motives were indirectly related to thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction. Lastly, hedonic and eudaimonic motives were positively related to intention to continue in sport, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress through basic psychological need satisfaction and thriving. The findings from study 1 contribute to nurturing the body of literature in the self-determination theory by presenting a comprehensive model to enhance the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of thriving within the youth sport context. In addition, hedonic and eudaimonic motives have been rarely applied to the sport context and the youth participants in particular. As motives are more broadly defined than the reasons for behaviors (Cambridge University, 2001), the present study indicated that youth athletes' motivational orientations (e.g., hedonic seeking or eudaimonic seeking for their sport participation) would have important meanings in their sport participation to increase the experience and thriving and positive functioning. In Study 2, the results demonstrated significant moderating effects of mental toughness on the indirect associations between basic psychological need thwarting and the outcomes through thriving. In other words, the negative impacts of basic psychological need thwarting on important outcomes were weakest for those participants who showed high mental toughness and strongest for the individuals with low mental toughness. The results demonstrated novel findings in that the mediating role of thriving between a motivational factor and outcome variables were moderated by the degree of mental toughness. Lastly, in Study 3, the results demonstrated that the social factors (i.e., autonomy supportiveness of both coaches and parents) were positively related to thriving and intrinsic regulation three months later through increased basic psychological need satisfaction. Additionally, hedonic motives did not predict thriving while eudaimonic motives indirectly predicted thriving and intrinsic regulation through basic psychological need satisfaction. Eudaimonic motives, but not hedonic motives, positively predicted intrinsic motivation three months later through basic psychological need satisfaction. Although previous research demonstrated significant relationships with high degrees of self-determined motivation regulation (e.g., intrinsic regulation) and both hedonic and eudaimonic experience (i.e., Waterman et al., 2008), our research demonstrated only eudaimonic motives were positively related to intrinsic regulation. Furthermore, the study found that hedonic motives did not indirectly predict thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction while eudaimonic motives predicted thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction. Since both social factors were significantly associated with intrinsic regulation and thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction, hedonic motives were not an important predictor of the enhancement in youth athletes' intrinsic regulation and thriving when comparing with another personal factor (eudaimonic motives) and the social factors (i.e., autonomy supportiveness of coaches and parents). Overall, this thesis provides a greater theoretical understanding of the comprehensive mechanism underlying thriving within a youth sport context by using a theory of motivation. As the dissertation examined both personal and social factors affecting youth thriving, the results provide insight into the ways in which youth can thrive and thus, implications are also drawn for important stakeholders in sport.