A longitudinal study on the change of passion in youth sport athletes

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY ON THE CHANGE OF PASSION IN YOUTH SPORT ATHLETES By Eric Michael Martin Vallerand and colleagues (Vallerand et al., 2003) postulated the dualistic model of passion. In this model, individuals can develop harmonious passion where an activity is aligned with other aspects of their life and is well-integrated into one’s identity or obsessive passion where the activity may take a disproportionate percentage of an individual’s identity and cause conflict with other contexts. Research has supported the dualistic model of passion and shown that, traditionally, harmonious passion leads to more positive outcomes than obsessive passion. Even though research has supported the dualistic model of passion, relatively few studies have investigated how passion for an activity changes. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to investigate how general passion, harmonious passion, and obsessive passion change across the course of a sport season in a sample of adolescent youth athletes. Additionally, child and family influences and coach-created climate variables were investigated to better understand the influence these variables play on passion change across a season. A total of 174 junior high and high school athletes (129 males, 45 females) aged 13-18 (M = 15.11, SD = 1.25) returned consent forms and completed surveys at both Time 1 (pre-season) and Time 2 (post-season). Athletes were currently involved in a sport and played a number of team and individual sports. In total, the sample was highly passionate for their sport. When investigating the dualistic model of passion, athletes had significantly higher levels of harmonious passion than obsessive passion at both Time 1 and Time 2. Unexpectedly, athletes’ level of general passion and harmonious passion significantly decreased from Time 1 to Time 2. Further investigation of these decreases in general and harmonious passion revealed that male and female athletes experienced these changes differently. From Time 1 to Time 2, male athletes’ general and harmonious passion levels increased slightly while female athletes’ levels significantly decreased. Exploratory analyses indicated that male athletes perceived a more positive sport environment than female athletes which may help explain why female athletes decreased in general and harmonious passion across the season. There was no change in obsessive passion from Time 1 to Time 2. A regression analysis indicated that from the child and family influence variables collected, only sense of identity derived from sport significantly predicted general passion. When coach-created climate variables were entered into a regression analysis predicting general passion, only autonomy and competence were significant predictors. Investigation of the paths of the structural equation model for child and family influences revealed both a sense of identity derived from sport and perceived sport valuation of parents positively predicted both harmonious and obsessive passion. Further, harmonious passion positively predicted future sport involvement for athletes while the path from obsessive passion to future sport involvement was non-significant. Investigation of the paths of the structural equation model for environmental factors showed that a task climate, ego climate, and basic need fulfillment all positively predicted harmonious passion. Additionally, a caring climate, ego climate, and need fulfillment all positively predicted the path to obsessive passion. Again, the path from harmonious passion positively predicted future sport involvement while the path for obsessive passion was non-significant. The current findings indicate that the sport environment may play a role in how passion changes across the course of a sport season, but more research is needed to better understand the role that negative sport environments may play on that change.