SELF-DETERMINED MOTIVATION AND SPORTSMANSHIP ORIENTATIONS - AN ASSESSMENT OF THEIR TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIP

The motives underlying involvement in sport appear to influence how a person will play the game. However, how athletes play the game may also have an impact on their motives for participating in sports. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-determined motivation and sportsmanship orientations by using a longitudinal design, as well as recent theoretical approaches to sportsmanship (Vallerand, 1991, 1994) and motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991). Male adolescent elite hockey players (N = 77, mean age = 15.8) completed a questionnaire assessing both constructs 2 weeks into the hockey season (T1) and at the end of the regular season (T2), 5 months later. The results from cross-lag correlations suggested that, over time, self-determined motivation and sportsmanship orientations have a positive bidirectional relation, in which self-determined motivation has greater influence on sportsmanship. These results give further impetus to the need to consider motivation in future studies on sportsmanship.