From liability to challenge: Complex environments are associated with favorable psychosocial outcomes in adolescent sport participants

Abstract This study aimed to identify different groups of adolescents who have distinct profiles based upon their perceptions of interpersonal and activity-based dimensions of the sport environment. A sample of 310 adolescents from Eastern Canada (Mage  = 14.69 ± 1.60 years; 54.8% girls) completed q...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of adolescence (London, England.) Vol. 58; no. 1; pp. 74 - 83
Main Authors García Bengoechea, Enrique, PhD, Wilson, Philip M., PhD, Dunn, Steven, MA
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2017
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Adolescence
Adolescent
Adolescents
Athletes
Athletic Performance - psychology
Child development
Cluster Analysis
Compensation
Development
Exercise - psychology
Female
Females
Happiness
Humans
Liability
Male
Motivation
Pediatrics
Psychosocial factors
Resilience
Sociodemographics
Sport
Sports
Surveys and Questionnaires
Youth Sports - psychology
Development
Adolescence
Sport
Motivation
Compensation
Resilience
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Abstract This study aimed to identify different groups of adolescents who have distinct profiles based upon their perceptions of interpersonal and activity-based dimensions of the sport environment. A sample of 310 adolescents from Eastern Canada (Mage  = 14.69 ± 1.60 years; 54.8% girls) completed questionnaires assessing selected interpersonal, activity-based, demographic and sport-specific variables. Using TwoStep Cluster Analysis, we identified three groupings of adolescent sport participants. Consistent with the literature, we labeled these groups ‘negative context,’ ‘positive context,’ and ‘complex context,’ respectively. As expected, participants in the last two groups reported greater enjoyment, perceived competence, and commitment to sport. Further, participants in the ‘complex context’ group showed the highest levels of sport commitment. We draw on insights from Csikszentmihalyi's theory of complexity and relational conceptions of compensation and resilience to interpret the findings, and offer an alternative account of contextual conditions suitable for adolescents involved in competitive sport.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0140-1971
1095-9254
DOI:10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.05.004