Halvari, H. (1983). Relationships between motive to achieve success, motive to avoid failure, physical performance, and sport performance in wrestling. Scandinavian Journal of Sports Science, 5, 64-72.

Norwegian wrestlers, 14-17 years old, of varying abilities [good for correlations] were tested (N = 26). Nygard and Gjesme's Achievement Motives Scale was used. Statistics determined were Pearson product-moment correlations and t tests.

When successful athletes were compared to unsuccessful athletes it was found that:

• Successful athletes have higher levels of motivations to succeed (Ms) and lower levels of motivations to avoid failure (Mf); and
• Success-oriented (high Ms/low Mf) athletes performed better than failure-oriented (low Ms/High Mf) athletes in international competitions, and better than indifferent-oriented (low Ms/low Mf) athletes in local competitions.

Implication. The greater the amount of positiveness and the less the negativeness in an athlete's reasons for participating in sport, the better. Sporting success is correlated with high levels of positiveness and few perceptions of negative features.

Return to Table of Contents for this issue.