Parental Influences on Adolescent Girl's Goal Orientations, Perceived Competence, Sport Friendship Quality, and Enjoyment

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships among critical sport psychosocial perceptions of fathers (<i>N</i>=84), mothers (<i>N</i>=84), and daughters (<i>N</i>=84) in the same family (<i>N</i>=252). Athlete participants were young female soccer players ranging in age from 9 to 14 years. A canonical correlation analysis revealed a significant overall multivariate relationship (Wilks's λ = .485, <i>p</i><.0001) and one significant function emerged (<i>Rc</i> = .64). The loadings suggested that athlete's perceptions of both mother and father created task involving and worry conducive climates all contributed to the multivariate relationship, predicting athlete's perceived competence, sport friendship quality, and task orientation. We also examined potential differences among athlete's, mother's, and father's perceptions of enjoyment and motivational climates. A series of repeated measures ANOVA's revealed that mothers believed that they created a more worrisome soccer climate for their daughters than fathers. In contrast, daughters reported that their fathers contributed to a worry conducive climate more than mothers.