Amorose, A. J., McDavid, L., Riley, A., & Iachini, A. (2012). Independent and interactive effects of mother, father, and coach autonomy support on athletes’ self-determined motivation. Presentation 1902 at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, San Francisco, California; May 29-June 2, 2012.

This study examined the independent and interactive influences of athletes’ perceptions of autonomy support from their mothers, fathers, and coaches on athletes’ self-determined motivation. Athletes (N=335) of both genders from a variety of school-sponsored sport teams completed survey measures near the end of their competitive seasons assessing their level of self-determined motivation and their perception of autonomy support provided by their coach, mother, and father.

Autonomy support from all three social agents significantly and positively predicted less than 11% of the athletes’ self-determined motivation. The addition of the two-way and three-way interactions between coach, mother, and father autonomy support significantly added to the overall prediction (12.25%).

Implication. The combination of perceived autonomy support from the three influential social agents (i.e. coaches, mothers, fathers, etc.) can add a small amount of understanding of athletes’ sport motivation.

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