Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate how perceived social support from coaches leads to favorable coach-athlete relationships via the mediation of coach-athlete attachment and the moderation of proactive personality. Method: The study consisted of a cross-sectional self-report survey with a sample of 302 professional athletes recruited and measured by psychological questionnaires of perceived coach social support, coach-athlete attachment, coach-athlete relationship, and proactive personality. The structural equation model examined the moderated mediation model. Results: The results indicated that coach-athlete attachment partially mediated the prediction of perceived coach-social support in the coach-athlete relationship. Proactive personality played a moderated role between perceived coach social support and coach-athlete attachment. Conclusions: This study suggests that coaches should pay more attention to athletes to build up the coach-athlete relationship, while they also need the athletes’ positive feedback.
Olympiou A, Jowett S, Duda JL, 2008, The Psychological Interface between the Coach-created Motivational Climate and the Coach-athlete Relationship in Team Sports. Sport Psychologist, 22(4): 423–438. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.22.4.423
Riley A, Smith AL, 2011, Perceived Coach-athlete and Peer Relationships of Young Athletes and Self-determined Motivation for Sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 42(1): 115–133.
Jowett S, Nezlek J, 2012, Relationship Interdependence and Satisfaction with Important Outcomes in Coach-athlete Dyads. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29(3): 287–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407511420980
Jowett S, Ntoumanis N, 2004, The Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART- Q): Development and Initial Validation. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 14(4): 245–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2003.00338.x
Rhind DJA, Jowett S, 2010, Initial Evidence for the Criterion-related and Structural Validity of the Long Versions of the Coach-athlete Relationship Questionnaire. European Journal of Sport Science, 10(6): 359–370.
Davis L, Appleby R, Davis P, et al., 2018, The Role of Coach-athlete Relationship Quality in Team Sport Athletes’ Psychophysiological Exhaustion: Implications for Physical and Cognitive Performance. Journal of Sports Sciences, 36(17): 1985–1992. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2018.1429176
Mageau GA, Vallerand RJ, 2003, The Coach-athlete Relationship: A Motivational Model. Journal of Sports Sciences, 21(11): 883–904. https://doi.org/10.1080/0264041031000140374
Shepherd DJ, Lee B, Kerr JH, 2006, Reversal Theory: A Suggested Way Forward for an Improved Understanding of Interpersonal Relationships in Sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 7(2): 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2005.08.003
Jowett S, 2007, Interdependence Analysis and the 3 + 1Cs in the Coach–athlete Relationship, in Social Psychology in Sport. Human Kinetics, Champaign, 63–77.
Lafreniere MK, Jowett S, Vallerand RJ, et al., 2011, Passion for Coaching and the Quality of the Coach-athlete Relationship: The Mediating Role of Coaching Behaviors. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12(2): 144–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.08.002
Raffaelli M, Andrade FCDA, Wiley R, et al., 2013, Stress, Social Support, and Depression: A Test of the Stress-buffering Hypothesis in a Mexican Sample. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 23(2): 283–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12006
Astaraki G, Ashrafganjooei F, Sajadi SH, 2016, Relation between Emotion Adjustment and Perceived Social Support with Quality of Life of Athletes with Disability. Ambient Science, 3(1): 69–73. https://doi.org/10.21276/ambi.2016.03.sp1.ra11
Rees T, Freeman P, Bell S, et al., 2012, Three Generalizability Studies of the Components of Perceived Coach Support. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 34(2): 238–251. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.34.2.238
Sheridan D, Coffee P, Lavallee D, 2014, A Systematic Review of Social Support in Youth Sport. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7(1): 198–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2014.931999
Uzum H, Karli U, Yildiz NO, 2018, Perceived Coach Attitudes and Behaviors Scale: Development and Validation Study. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 6(3): 160–169.
Corbillon F, Crossman J, Jamieson J, 2009, Injured Athletes’ Perceptions of the Social Support Provided by their Coaches and Teammates during Rehabilitation. Journal of Sport Behavior, 32(2): 93–107. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1341820
Fung TY, Webster R, 2018, Perceived Social Support, Social Interest, and Mental Health: Testing a Mediator Model. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 74(2): 157–171. https://doi.org/10.1353/jip.2018.0010
Vicary AM, Fraley RC, 2007, Choose your own Adventure: Attachment Dynamics in a Simulated Relationship. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(9): 1279–1291. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207303013
Hazan C, Shaver PR, 1987, Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3): 511–524. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.52.3.511
Davis L, Jowett S, 2010, Investigating the Interpersonal Dynamics between Coaches and Athletes based on Fundamental Principles of Attachment Theory. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 4(2): 112–132. https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.4.2.112
Carr S, 2009, Adolescent-parent Attachment Characteristics and Quality of Youth Sport Friendship. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10(6): 653–661. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.04.001
Milroy JJ, Hebard S, Kroshus E, et al., 2018, Sport-related Concussion Reporting and Coach-athlete Attachment among Collegiate Student-athletes. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 12(2): 1–23.
Carr S, Fitzpatrick N, 2011, Experiences of Dyadic Sport Friendships as a Function of Self and Partner Attachment Characteristics. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12(4): 383–391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2011.03.003
Jowett S, 2005, On Repairing and Enhancing the Coach-athlete Relationship, in The Psychology of Coaching. The British Psychological Society, Leicester, 14–26.
Davis L, Jowett S, Lafreniere MK, 2013, An Attachment Theory Perspective in the Examination of Relational Processes Associated with Coach-athlete Dyads. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35(2): 156–167. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.35.2.156
Armsden GC, Greenberg MT, 1987, The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment: Relationships to Well-being in Adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 18(5): 683–692. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02202939
Bateman TS, Crant JM, 1993, The Proactive Component of Organizational Behavior: A Measure and Correlates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2): 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030140202
Thomposon JA, 2005, Proactive Personality and Job Performance: A Social Capital Perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5): 1011–1017. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.1011
Tornau K, Frese M, 2013, Construct Clean-up in Proactivity Research: A Meta-analysis on the Nomological Net of Work-related Proactivity Concepts and their Incremental Validities. Applied Psychology, 62(1): 44–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2012.00514.x
Ai L, Wang Y, 2017, Proactive Personality and Coach-athlete Relationship: The Mediation of Self-determined Motivation. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25(6): 1119–1123.
Zhao F, 2007, The Relationship of Athletes’ Burnout and Coach Social Support Which they perceived, thesis, Beijing Sport University, Beijing.
Claes R, Beheydt C, Lemmens B, 2005, Unidimensionality of Abbreviated Proactive Personality Scales across Cultures. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54(4): 476–489. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2005.00221.x
Shan J, 2008, An Empirical Study on the Effects of Proactive Personality, Role Stress, and Work-Family Conflict on Job Burnout—Case of Young White Collars in Shanghai, thesis, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Hayes AF, 2013, Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-based Approach. Journal of Educational Measurement, 51(3): 335–337. https://doi.org/10.1111/jedm.12050
Fang J, Zhang M, Li X, 2011, Estimating Confidence Intervals of Mediating Effects by using the Distribution of the Product, Bootstrap and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods. Advances in Psychological Science, 19(5): 765–774. https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1000278
Preacher KJ, Kelley K, 2011, Effect Size Measures for Mediation Models: Quantitative Strategies for Communicating Indirect Effects. Psychological Methods, 16(2): 93–115. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022658
Wen Z, Fan X, Ye B, et al., 2016, Characteristics of an Effect Size and Appropriateness of Mediation Effect Size Measures Revisited. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 48(4): 435–443.
Jowett S, 2013, Unleashing the Power of Coach-athlete Relationships, in Abstracts of the ISSP 13th World Congress of Sport Psychology. Beijing Sport University, Beijing.
Rhind DJA, Jowett S, 2010, Relationship Maintenance Strategies in the Coach-Athlete Relationship: The Development of the COMPASS Model. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22(1): 106–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200903474472
Lu FJH, Lee WP, Chang YK, et al., 2016, Interaction of Athletes’ Resilience and Coaches’ Social Support on the Stress-burnout Relationship: A Conjunctive Moderation Perspective. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2016(22): 202–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2015.08.005
Maurice S, Kuklick C, Anderson M, 2017, Providing Social Support to Injured Athletes: Applications of the International Sport Coaching Framework. International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health, 4(5): 166–175.
Wang B, Ye L, Wu M, et al., 2014, Effects of Gratitude on Athlete Engagement: Mediation of Coach-athlete Relationship. Journal of Beijing Sport University, 37(9): 85–90.
Hung WH, Chen K, Lin CP, 2015, Does the Proactive Personality Mitigate the Adverse Effect of Technostress on Productivity in the Mobile Environment? Telematics and Informatics, 32(1): 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2014.06.002