Group cohesion and relatedness as predictors of self-determined motivation and burnout in adolescent female athletes

ObjectivesAthlete burnout is the result of a maladaptive sport experience that is influenced by the social context. A salient social contextual feature of youth sport is group cohesion. Cohesion may link with burnout through its association with relatedness and self-determined motivation. The current study was designed to test a model in which cohesion associates with burnout by way of relatedness and self-determined motivation.DesignCross-sectional survey-based study.MethodFemale youth soccer athletes (N = 276; M age = 14.9 years, SD = 1.3) completed measures of task and social cohesion, relatedness, self-determined motivation, and burnout.ResultsTask (β = 0.26) and social (β = 0.59) cohesion associated with perceptions of relatedness. In turn, relatedness positively linked with self-determined motivation (β = 0.38), which in turn negatively associated with global burnout (β = −0.79). The indirect effects from task cohesion to burnout (β = −0.08) and from social cohesion to burnout (β = −0.18) by way of relatedness and self-determined motivation were significant.ConclusionsResults support the proposed model whereby greater cohesion associates with an athlete’s feelings of relatedness, which links to more self-determined motivation and, consequently, lower burnout perceptions. Future research is needed to assess support for causality of these links and explore how contextual factors such as the teammate-created motivational climate contributes to group cohesion and relatedness perceptions within this burnout model.