Motivational antecedents of obligatory exercise: The influence of achievement goals and multidimensional perfectionism

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present investigation was to determine the relationship between athletes’ goal orientations, elements of perfectionism, perceived ability and obligatory exercise behaviour.MethodTwo hundred and forty six British middle-distance runners completed a multi-sectional inventory containing the Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire [Pasman, L., & Thompson, J. K. (1988). Body image and eating disturbance in obligatory runners, obligatory weightlifters, and sedentary individuals. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 7, 759–769], the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire [Duda, J. L., & Nicholls, J. G. (1989). The task and ego orientation in sport questionnaire: Psychometric properties. Unpublished manuscript], and the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost, R. O., Marten, P. A., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 449–468).ResultsRegression analyses indicated that 31% of obligatory exercise behaviour could be explained by a combination of athletes’ goal orientations, perceived ability, concern about mistakes and high personal standards. Further regression analyses indicated that high ability and elements of perfectionism combined to explain 49% variance in the obligatory exercise behaviour of females, while achievement related overstriving (Covington, 1992), which included high task and ego goals and elements of neurotic perfectionism, combined to explain 27% variance in the obligatory exercise behaviour of male participants.ConclusionThe positive association between achievement goals, perfectionistic striving and obligatory exercise behaviour in this sample of club runners seems to result from a combination of motivational variables that encourage a focus on self-validation and failure avoidance, and it is this psychological mechanism which appears to underpin this compulsive form of exercise.