Abstract
Experiential avoidance, the attempt to avoid negative experiences, can prevent athletes from reaching their goals. To mitigate this tendency, the authors offer a relational approach and propose that dispositional gratitude and perceived autonomy support from coaches will have an interaction effect in mitigating experiential avoidance. Time-lagged data from 140 athletes were analyzed. Dispositional gratitude and perceived coach autonomy support had a significant interaction effect on predicting experiential avoidance when Time 1 experiential avoidance was controlled. Those high in dispositional gratitude and perceived coach autonomy support decreased their experiential avoidance over time. Implications and application for experiential avoidance and gratitude are discussed.