The impact of acculturation on sport motivation among Mexican-American adolescent athletes

Although sport psychology research has revealed differences in motivational orientation among athletes from various ethnic groups (Duda, 1985, 1986a; Whitehead, 1986), no work has addressed the impact of within-group variation in acculturation on motivational goal perspectives. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on data generated from young Mexican-American male (n = 83) and female (n = 80) athletes. Among males, the acculturation dimensions of media use (beta = .265, p < .001) and ethnic social relations (beta = .188, p < .001) significantly predicted a task goal perspective, explaining 32% of the variance, whereas increased ego involvement among female athletes was significantly predicted by language use (beta = .336, p < .01) and ethnic social relations (beta = .259, p < .05), accounting for 29% of the variance. Both statistical and theoretical explanations are offered for the observed gender differences. These preliminary results suggest that acculturation differentially impacts how Mexican-American male and female athletes derive their perceptions of competence within the competitive sport setting.