How does parental motivational climate differentiate athletic experience

IntroductionIn order to examine motivation and its processes in sport we have to take into account the achievement goal theory (Nicholls, 1984; Nicholls, 1989; Dweck, 1986; Duda, 1992). The crux of the theory is that individuals engage in achievement contexts in order to demonstrate competence. Competence leads to goal perspective, and as Nicholls (1989) lias proposed, two goal perspectives have been identified and to operate in achievement contexts such as sport, task orientation and ego orientation. The individual who is high in task orientation uses self-referenced criteria to define success and perceives competence as improvement. The major focus of this person places his focus on learning something new, achieving personal progress, or meeting the demands of the task. In contrast, the individual who is high in ego orientation focuses to use normative or other-referenced criteria to define success and feels competent when he/she has demonstrated superior ability. The major focus of this person is to outperform others (White, Kavussanu, Tank, & Wingate, 2004). In sports, individuals identified task orientation as the belief that hard work and cooperation with peers lead to success. On the contrary, ego orientation is determined by external factors (i.e., money, transfer, e.t.c.) possessing high levels of ability, and using strategies such as cheating and trying to impress the coach (Duda & White, 1992; Newton & Duda, 1993; White & Zellner, 1996). Significant others (i.e., parents, coaches) are assumed to "pass" their achievement perspectives to children through their interaction with them, and their reward systems (Ames & Archer, 1987; Ames, 1992; Brustad, 1992). Parents are the most important factor that influences young people's lives in every aspect. Child is influenced constantly by family member(s). Horn and Horn (2007), in their research indicated that parents' belief and value systems (e.g., their beliefs, attitudes, e.t.c.) determine their behaviors toward their child. These behaviors then influence the child's belief and value systems, which determine the child's behavior. They identified that parents are significant providers of any information on performance. Children's beliefs about themselves as competent and socially acceptable, is directly related to their perception of how their parents will counter to success or failure (Eccles & Harold, 1991). That's why parents are also significant in terms of young people's achievement activities (Heyman & Dweck, 1998). Harter (1981) in his research mentioned that parents play an important role in their children's development, both in the academic domain (Bois, Sarrazin, Brustad, Trouilloud, & Cury, 2005) and in the sport domain (Horn & Horn, 2007). Parents can influence their children's participation in physical activity through a variety of mechanisms. These include direct modelling of physical activity, providing resources to perform physical activity, establishing or eliminating barriers to physical activity, and positively reinforcing children for participation in physical activity (White, Duda, & Hart, 1992; Taylor, Baranowski & Sallis, 1994; Kimiecik, Horn, & Shurin, 1996; Mota & Queiros, 1996). On sport content, parents influence athletes' reactions upon their sports experience. Young athletes mentioned that their parents are being considered as important paradigms in their athletic/sport life (DiLorenzo, Stucky-Ropp, Vander Wal, & Gotham, 1998; Bloom, 1985). Parents are one of the three social environments factors that influence the development of athletes. Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde and Whalen, (1993), Cote (1999), and Soberlack (2001) highlighted the major influence of the family at the different stages of children's development in science, art and sports. They supported that the role of parents changes from the sampling through to the investment years. During the sampling years parents have a direct involvement in their child's sporting activities, which consists mainly of coaching and playing/training with their child. …