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Abstract

The present research extended and tested a motivational model of anger and aggression, derived from self-determination theory. It was hypothesized that control-oriented parents would exhibit more ego defensiveness, feel more pressure, and thus report higher levels of sport parental anger and aggression. Conversely, autonomy-oriented parents were predicted to experience less ego defensiveness, feel less pressure, and thus report lower levels of sport parent anger and aggression. Participants were 340 parents of youth soccer players (boys and girls ages 8–16). The majority of participants reported experiencing anger and responded with varying levels of aggression. The results provide strong support for the hypotheses and suggest that control orientation determines parents' ego defensiveness, which in turn leads to anger and aggressive spectator behavior.
... At the mezzo-level, it has been suggested that inappropriate or negative parental involvement may be the result of parents or family members struggling to cope with stressors in the youth sport environment (Harwood & Knight, 2009;Knight et al., 2009). For example, researchers argued parental behaviors are interrelated to stressors and present themselves both emotionally and behaviorally in sport settings (e.g., anger, sadness, yelling, etc.), especially when parents witness an injury or see a dangerous play (Goldstein & Iso-Ahola, 2008;Gould et al., 2008;Omli & LaVoi, 2009). ...
... Within the framework of family systems theory, a growing body of research begun to focus on the spectator behaviors of parents involved in youth sport (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2013;Reynolds, 2021). Studies focused on observing parent behaviors such as aggression and anger (Goldstein & Iso-Ahola, 2008), connecting sportbased behaviors to parenting practices (Trussell & Shaw, 2012), measuring parent spectating behaviors (Omli & LaVoi, 2009;Reynolds, 2020Reynolds, , 2021, and developing educational initiatives and interventions to address spectating behaviors (Dorsch et al., 2019;Reynolds, 2021). ...
... Future research on the spectating behaviors of parents in online settings is highly relevant to a growing body of literature pointing to the emotional responses of parent spectators. Scholars found parental emotions expressed at youth sporting events can result in bursts of anger, disagreements with officials or inappropriate forms of coaching or engagement from the sidelines directed either at children, other youth sport participants, other parents, coaches, teams, or spectators (Goldstein & Iso-Ahola, 2008;Jeanfreau et al, 2020;Omli & Lavoi, 2009;Reynolds, 2020Reynolds, , 2021. ...
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The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes to family life and youth sports activities around the globe. In efforts to promote continuity and youth participation in sports, and in lieu of risks for spreading the virus at competitions and games, the youth sport environment adapted to meet emerging health and safety protocols. The cancellation of youth sports and shifts to virtual spectating (i.e., watching children play sports online) were often enacted to protect families, yet little is known about how these changes physically, socially, and psychologically impacted parents and the family system. In response, we conducted a mixed-methods study to explore the lived experiences of parents of youth sport participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. This novel and exploratory research discovered several shifts in the physical environment of youth sport, including challenges with technology and limitations in the number of spectators at youth sporting events. Findings also revealed an array of psychosocial experiences among parents including feelings of grief, frustration, and sadness due to restrictions and sport cancellations, as well as fewer child-parent interactions and a diminished connection to sport in response to virtual spectating. We developed a conceptual model of how shifts in the youth sport environment influenced parent spectators. Our findings have important implications for practice and inform future areas of research regarding youth sports and the family system. Keywords: parent spectators; youth sports; COVID-19 pandemic; family systems
... impulsive, and with limited legal consequences (Fields et al., 2007;Goldstein and Iso-Ahola, 2008;Walters et al., 2016;Block and Lesneskie, 2018). Negative spectator behaviors (often represented by parent misconduct) predict negative athletic behaviors of children and reduced enjoyment for all participants (Arthur-Banning et al., 2009;Bean et al., 2014;Logan and Cuff, 2019). ...
... In addition, spectator misconduct has become so problematic that according to data from the National Association of Sports Officials (2017), contended spectator behavior was responsible for the mass exodus of referees across sports settings. While there are frequent mass media and social media stories about these incidents, there is limited empirical evidence to understand the frequency and nature of spectator behaviors (Goldstein and Iso-Ahola, 2008;Omli and Lavoi, 2009;Knight, 2019), especially when laws are created to legislate such behaviors. ...
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Inappropriate spectator behaviors are a recognized challenge within both amateur and youth sport settings. These behaviors occur during youth sports contests and involve several sources of interaction, and impact the experience of child athletes, coaches, parents, and referees Spectator misconduct reflects a failure to self-regulate amidst disagreement with the coaching practices, officials, and poor performance from children. Despite widespread recognition of spectator misconduct and an emphasis by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to improve parent behavior, limited empirical research is available to promote understanding of both contributors to these actions, more specifically, what parents are observing from others and the frequency of such behaviors. A path to enhance research in this area is a closer examination of intersectionality, especially race and its influence upon parent observations and their personal behaviors as youth sport spectators. Based on research conducted in Louisiana, this perspective piece reflects on a study that found race as a contributing factor to differences in spectating behaviors of parents. The authors unpack the nuances of these findings through a lens of both Critical Race Theory (CRT) and implicit bias and provide a platform for future study, especially in states such as Louisiana where laws and the role of police have been advanced to mitigate spectator behaviors in youth sport settings.
... Moreover, our results indicate that negative parental behaviors have a stronger predictive power than positive ones (Lienhart et al., 2019;De Muynck et al., 2021). In a sports context, negative parental actions can indeed lead to highly unsettling and hard-to-ignore phenomena, such as conditional respect and off-field anger (Goldstein and Iso-Ahola, 2008;Ross et al., 2015). Future research on Frontiers in Psychology 17 frontiersin.org ...
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Objectives Parents are one of the main social agents that shape young athletes’ experiences and participation in sports, but they are also the least explored group in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of research on the role of parents in the motivation of young athletes. Method The systematic literature review consisted of four electronic databases from which 29 articles published in English and in full-text form in peer-reviewed journals between 1999 and 2023 were retrieved. Results A total of 29 studies met the eligibility criteria. These studies collectively surveyed 9,185 young athlete participants and 2,191 parent participants. The sample comprised 26 quantitative studies and 3 qualitative studies. The findings underscore that parents play both unique and synergistic multidimensional roles in motivating young athletes. Parents’ positive goals and values, autonomy-supportive parenting styles, moderate parental involvement, positive parent–child relationships, and a parent-initiated task climate are identified as optimal parenting strategies. Conclusion While parents undeniably play a crucial role in motivating young athletes, the manner and extent of their involvement are key.
... Studies that have attempted to address these issues can be found in this topic area. Psychological approaches and different training and support structures have been proposed to facilitate feedback and communication between coaches and parents at all levels, from the elite youth level onwards [49,50]. These research efforts have contributed to the consideration of more advanced communication methods and training systems for youth soccer players. ...
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This study identifies the topical areas of research that have attempted a psychological approach to soccer research over the last 33 years (1990–2022) and explored the growth and stagnation of the topic as well as research contributions to soccer development. Data were obtained from 1863 papers from the Web of Science database. The data were collected through keyword text mining and data preprocessing to determine the keywords needed for analysis. Based on the keywords, latent Dirichlet allocation-based topic modeling analysis was performed to analyze the topic distribution of papers and explore research trends by topic area. The topic modeling process included four topic area and fifty topics. The “Coaching Essentials in Football” topic area had the highest frequency, but it was not statistically identified as a trend. However, coaching, including training, is expected to continue to be an important research topic, as it is a key requirement for success in the highly competitive elite football world. Interest in the research field of “Psychological Skills for Performance Development” has waned in recent years. This may be due to the predominance of other subject areas rather than a lack of interest. Various high-tech interventions and problem-solving attempts are being made in this field, providing opportunities for qualitative and quantitative expansion. “Motivation, cognition, and emotion” is a largely underrated subject area in soccer psychology. This could be because survey-based psychological evaluation attempts have decreased as the importance of rapid field application has been emphasized in recent soccer-related studies. However, measuring psychological factors contributes to the study of football psychology through a new methodology and theoretical background. Recognizing the important role of psychological factors in player performance and mental management, as well as presenting new research directions and approaches that can be directly applied to the field, will advance soccer psychology research.
... For example, Gould et al., (2006) purported that 36% of youth tennis parents demonstrate confronting and violent behaviour toward other parents, place an unhealthy focus on winning, hold unrealistic expectations and publicly criticise youth participants. Another study by Goldstein and Iso-Ahola (2008) also found that many youth soccer parents walk away from events in anger, make offensive gestures and confront spectators during and after competition. While such behaviours are incongruent with policies such as the code of behaviour, (Elliott & Drummond, 2015b) suggest that similar behaviours will continue to emerge in junior Australian football given that broader social and cultural influences reinforce notions of winning and competitive success. ...
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This book is a contemporary analysis of one of the most popular sports in Australia. An assembled expert group of researchers and practitioners provide an exceptional book on Australian football (AFL). The book is unique in that it covers a broad range of important topics in the scientific, coaching and social domains.
... In the United States, Goldstein and Iso-Ahola [51] evaluated the behavior of 340 parents of young male and female players (between 8 and 16 years old), and the results highlighted that, even if parents have the best intentions for their children in competition, sometimes they end up losing control, and guidance on parental participation can contribute to a more controlled and positive behavior, enhancing social determinants. From this perspective, the importance of the presence of parents in training and competition environments is highlighted, but it emphasizes that positive social influences depend on appropriate behavior. ...
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The different deployments that involve youth soccer players’ development must be dis cussed and organized by adults, thinking about creating safe, challenging, and stimulating environments for them. Thus, our aim with this study is to investigate variables about family participation in the players’ development processes in the context of children’s competitions in Brazil. This qualitative–descriptive research was conducted in the under-10 category of the Nova Liga Gaúcha de Futebol Infantil (NOLIGAFI) through interviews with twelve coaches and in loco observations. The results showed that all coaches highlighted the importance and role of the family in the healthy development of young players. However, fact-based evidence reveals negative family participation. From this complex scenario, the coaches become fundamental figures for mediating and guiding this process, organizing proposals aimed at educating parents in the sports scenarios to promote an environment of competitive practice in football that is healthier for children. Keywords: youth sports; parents; soccer; coaches; family participation
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This study investigates the factors inhibiting sports participation among students at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria. The importance of sports in fostering physical, social, and psychological well-being among students is well-documented. Despite the availability of various sports facilities and opportunities, a significant portion of the student body remains disengaged from active participation in sports. The research utilized a descriptive survey design, sampling 200 students from four faculties: Law, Education, Agricultural Science, and Science. Data was collected using a self-constructed questionnaire validated by experts. The findings reveal that 62% of the students cited inadequate facilities as a major barrier, 55% indicated parental influence as a deterrent, 47% reported low motivation, 39% expressed fear of poor academic performance, and 33% highlighted the fear of sports injuries. Statistical analysis using chi-square tests showed a significant association between these factors and sports participation (p < 0.05). The study concludes that addressing these barriers is crucial for enhancing sports engagement and its associated benefits among university students. Recommendations include improving sports infrastructure, fostering positive parental attitudes towards sports, and implementing programs to boost student motivation and mitigate injury fears.
Article
Spectators can engage in high levels of verbal aggression toward youth hockey officials. Often, the perpetrators of this aggression are the parents. Our aim was to test the motivational factors involved in explaining why hockey parents sometimes take things too far and engage in verbally aggressive behavior toward officials. We reasoned that verbal aggression toward officials would be a function of two forms of motivational imbalance. First, in line with the dualistic model of passion, we hypothesized that verbal aggression would be positively associated with hockey parents' obsessive passion, an imbalanced form of passion. Also, based on the compensatory model of passion, we predicted that obsessive passion would be associated with imbalanced psychological need satisfaction involving high need satisfaction from being a hockey parent, but low global need satisfaction. We administered online surveys to Canadian hockey parents (N = 992) assessing their verbal aggression toward officials, passion for being a hockey parent, and psychological need satisfaction from being a hockey parent and in general. Using structural equation modeling, we found support for a model in which high need satisfaction from being a hockey parent and low need satisfaction in general were associated with obsessive passion. Obsessive passion, in turn, was associated with greater verbal aggression toward referees. These findings help reveal why some hockey parents insult, threaten, and engage in other forms of verbal aggression toward officials. They also highlight the importance of maintaining motivational balance among sport parents.
Book
I: Background.- 1. An Introduction.- 2. Conceptualizations of Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination.- II: Self-Determination Theory.- 3. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Perceived Causality and Perceived Competence.- 4. Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Interpersonal Communication and Intrapersonal Regulation.- 5. Toward an Organismic Integration Theory: Motivation and Development.- 6. Causality Orientations Theory: Personality Influences on Motivation.- III: Alternative Approaches.- 7. Operant and Attributional Theories.- 8. Information-Processing Theories.- IV: Applications and Implications.- 9. Education.- 10. Psychotherapy.- 11. Work.- 12. Sports.- References.- Author Index.
Chapter
The idealists of modern sports—Pierre de Coubertin, for instance, or Avery Brundage —have often made conscious use of verbal and nonverbal symbolism derived from the athletic rituals of ancient Greece. The revival of the discus throw and the creation of the marathon are two examples of idealistic historicism; the torch ignited by the sun at the altar of Zeus in Olympia and carried by relay runners to the site of the modern games is another. Coubertin (1894/1966) himself contrasted “l’athlète d’Olympie” with his ignoble counterpart, the “gladiateur de cirque” Other commentators, disillusioned with the nationalism, commercialism, political instrumentalization, and sheer violence of 20th-century sports, have consistently drawn their analogies not from Delphi and Olympia but rather from Rome and Constantinople. Football players are routinely likened to gladiators and the crowds enthralled by the Indianapolis races or by the Tour de France are said to lust for partem et circenses. Critics of modern violence have referred to ancient gore and have concluded in dismay that we too are in a phase of decadent decline or, worse yet, that humankind is biologically programmed to commit mayhem upon itself.
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Little League Baseball coaches were exposed to a preseason training program designed to assist them in relating more effectively to children. Empirically derived behavioral guidelines were presented and modeled, and behavioral feedback and self-monitoring were used to enhance self-awareness and to encourage compliance with the guidelines. Trained coaches differed from controls in both overt and player-perceived behaviors in a manner consistent with the behavioral guidelines. They were also evaluated more positively by their players, and a higher level of intrateam attraction was found on their teams despite the fact that they did not differ from controls in won-lost records. Children who played for the trained coaches exhibited a significant increase in general self-esteem compared with scores obtained a year earlier; control group children did not. The greatest differences in attitudes toward trained and control coaches were found among children low in self-esteem, and such children appeared most sensitive to variations in coaches' use of encouragement, punishment, and technical instruction.