Coach Expectations and Athlete Lay Beliefs: Interactions When Predicting Adolescent Athletes’ Enjoyment and Intentions to Return

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how athlete lay beliefs and coach expectations for athletes’ capacity to change interact when predicting enjoyment and intentions to continue in sport. Athletes (N = 202) and their 19 coaches completed surveys. Athletes with strong incremental (i.e., growth) mind-sets reported more enjoyment from affiliation and expending effort. Athletes with strong entity (i.e., fixed) mind-sets reported lower enjoyment from self-improvement, affiliation, and excitement. Regarding interactions, although athletes reported lower intentions and self-improvement enjoyment when a coach believed they had little likelihood of developing, these associations were attenuated for athletes with strong incremental mind-sets.

Additional information

Funding

Scott A. Graupensperger is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Award TL1TR002016. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH.