Teammate social support, burnout, and self-determined motivation in collegiate athletes

ObjectiveThere is limited understanding of how specific components of social support are associated with athlete burnout and self-determined motivation, as most investigations have exclusively targeted overall support satisfaction. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine if perceived support availability and received support, over and above support satisfaction, were associated with these correlates of psychological well-being in athletes. We also examined potential team-level variation in burnout and self-determined motivation.DesignCross-sectional.MethodUnited States college athletes (N = 235; Mage = 19.8 years) completed reliable and valid assessments of study variables via an online questionnaire.ResultsMultilevel linear modeling showed a lack of team-level variation in burnout and self-determined motivation. Regression analyses showed perceived support availability to be inversely associated with burnout and positively associated with self-determined motivation. This was over and above support satisfaction, which demonstrated the same pattern of associations. Received support did not meaningfully associate with burnout or self-determined motivation over and above support satisfaction.ConclusionResults suggest that the perception of support availability from teammates, regardless of received support, was an important correlate of burnout and self-determined motivation in sport. Also, the general lack of team-level variation in the criterion variables suggests that burnout and self-determined motivation perceptions were largely driven by individual experiences.

► Examined associations of distinct social support constructs with college athlete burnout and self-determined motivation.
► Support availability and support satisfaction were negatively associated with reduced accomplishment and sport devaluation.
► Support availability and support satisfaction were positively associated with self-determined motivation.
► Perceptions of received support did not predict burnout or self-determined motivation.
► Variation in burnout and self-determined motivation occurred at the individual level and not at the team level.