Relationship Between Perceived Autonomy Support,Control And Mental Toughness Of Athletes

Objective: Based on the basic psychological needs theory,this study aims to explore the indirect relationship between coaching environment(autonomy support or control)and mental toughness of athletes,as well as to test the mediating effect of basic psychological needs.Methods: For this study,497 elite athletes(12-28 years old)who were voluntarily recruited as participants from Guandong Province were invited to complete five self-report questionnaires which included: The 6-item Chinese Version of Health-Care Climate Questionnaire,The 15-item Controlling Coach Behaviors Scale,The 8-item Mental Toughness Index,The 12-item Psychological Need Thwarting Scale and The 16-item Basic Needs Satisfaction in Sport Scale.They have to done it three times in a year,and the interval is 4 months.cross sectional and longitudinal studies are used to analyze the data.Result :in one hand,results of cross sectional study supported a good fit index scores(CMIN/df=2.249;CFI=.0.91;IFI=0.91,RMSEA=.053),which indicated that the autonomy support from coaches can indirectly influence mental toughness of athletes by psychological needs satisfaction,and the impact of competence is the greatest.but the coaching environment only directly influence psychological needs thwarting.in the other hand,result of longitudinal study supported a good fit index scores(CMIN/df=1.488;CFI=0.945;IFI=0.947;RMSEA=0.079),which indicated that the coaching environment can indirectly influence mental toughness of athletes by psychological needs thwarting,and it is the only effective path.besides that,the temporal effect and reciprocal effect can also be discovered in the model.compared the results generated through the two approaches,the autonomy support from coaches can indirectly influence mental toughness of athletes in a certain period of time,but as time going,the impact is becoming weaken or even disappear,and the coaching environment can indirectly influence mental toughness of athletes at some stage of the process.Conclusion: coaching environment can indirectly influence mental toughness of athletes by basic psychological needs,but the impact is in instability.