The Relation of Perceived Motivational Climate with Anxiety and Self-esteem in Elite and Non-elite Athletes of Team Sports

Social Environment، like class or sport team، determines the motivational climate that we perceive. Moreover، researchers reported that athletes of sport teams differ at psychological factors which could be related to teams’ motivational climate. So far، few studies have considered this issue in elite athletes. Thus، this study aimed to study perceived motivational climate and its relationship with anxiety and self-esteem in elite and non-elite athletes of team sports. Participants of this study were 116 male athletes at range of 18 to 29 years (Mean=24+3/7)، who were taking part in either elite or non-elite levels (55 elite and 61 non-elite). The instruments used were PMCSQ-2 to evaluate motivational climate، SAS to assess anxiety، and SEI to measure self-esteem in athletes. Kolmogorov Smirnov test was used to study the normality of data. Descriptive statistics methods were used to report scores of athletes، one-way analysis of variances to discover the difference between two groups and also pierson correlation test to study the relation between anxiety and self-esteem with perceived motivational climate. Results showed that perceived motivational climate was more task-oriented in elite athletes than their non-elite counterparts. But there was no significant relation between two groups in self-esteem and concentration disruption. At task-oriented dimension، elite athletes had higher scores in cooperative learning and important role rather than their non-elite peers. Evaluating the correlations showed that there are significant reverse correlations between: task-oriented climate and self-oriented climate، somatic anxiety and task-oriented climate، worry and task-oriented climate، concentration disruption and task-oriented climate، somatic anxiety and self-esteem، and worry and self-esteem (P<0/05). Based on findings of this study and similar researches it seems that performance of athletes is affected vividly by psychological characteristics. Mental factors can differentiate elites from non-elites. High levels of mental readiness cause increasing the success rate of athletes and promoting their competence، which causes higher motivation، self-confidence، self-esteem and finally promoting athletic performance. It is suggested to coaches that increase motivation in athletes by providing fine training، encouragement، rewards and well-organized feedback، as well as using strategies for increasing the self-esteem and decreasing anxiety.