Article Review #3

Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW #1 1

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ARTICLE REVIEW #1

Article Review #1

Alice Caruthers

Department of Psychology, Florida Institute of Technology

PSY 2446 – Sport Psychology [2022 Fall 2]

Dr. Todd Caze II

November 6, 2022

Article review #1

Introduction

The article Associations between motivation and mental health in sport: A test of the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation written by Sheehan, Herring & Campbell (2018), discusses motivation as a leading determinant in sport behaviour. It involves understanding the athlete’s diversity and changing motives to initiate, direct, sustain and terminate an effort. The article studies mental healthiness effects in the motivational structure by looking at the classified approaches to intrinsic and extrinsic drive. The hypothesis touches on the association between motivational climate and primary psychological needs.

Methods

The article uses a qualitative research methodology through participant observation. The participants were team-sport athletes who played at the nationwide level within their activity. The sample characterized athletes from sports like rugby, soccer, hockey, basketball, hurling and Gaelic football. The ethics committee approved the procedures, and informed consent was obtained from the participants. Some measures include sport motivation scales, satisfaction scales, motivational climate scales, mood states scales, sleep quality, and anxiety inventory. The study analyses data using SPSS and MPlus, which summarizes descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients.

Results

Motivational climate involves the social-environmental factors in the sport context, like teammates and sports structures. The coach is the leading factor that architects the motivational climate due to the emphasis on mastery and self-comparison that fosters the athlete's ego. The findings show a significant association between motivational climate and psychological needs. Positive relations that affect a task climate include relatedness, competence and autonomy. However, the study shows that ego climate is not associated with aspects like autonomy and relatedness hence not linked to basic needs satisfaction.

Discussion

The article's findings are applicable in real-life situations as it helps understand athletes' motivational patterns attributed to basic needs satisfaction. This helps understand the various issues leading to mental health problems among athletes, like poor sleep quality. For instance, a coach can use the findings to understand the need to endorse a task climate that instils belief, supports free will and shows empathy with the athletes, hence satisfying their basic needs. Meeting basic needs helps motivate athletes through autonomous motivation, competence motivation and many more, influencing their mental health. Links to motivational climate and motivation can get enhanced through coach-centred interventions.

Reference

Sheehan, R. B., Herring, M. P., & Campbell, M. J. (2018). Associations between motivation and mental health in sport: A test of the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  Frontiers in Psychology,  9, 707.