Life aspirations and passion in argentine athletes from youth olympic games

RAIMUNDI, M.J.; IGLESIAS, D.; GARCÍA ARABEHETY, M.; PÉREZ GAIDO, M.; CELSI, I.; SCHMIDT, V. ; CASTILLO, I.

Dublin

Congreso; 23rd. Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Sciences (ECSS); 2018

European College of Sport Sciences (ECSS)

IntroductionSelf Determination Theory (SDT) conceptualizes life aspirations as essential aspects of motivation that influence the quality of experience and well-being. There are two types of aspirations: intrinsic aspirations are related to personal growth, meaningful relationships and community contributions. On the contrary, extrinsic aspirations (i.e. wealth, fame, image) imply the achievement of rewards and the recognition of others. Another concept addressed from the SDT is passion, defined as a strong inclination over an activity that the person enjoys or loves, in which he invests time and energy and is internalized as part of his own. The Dualistic Model of passion posits that two distinct types of passion develop as a result of the type of internalization process that takes place: harmonious and obsessive. Several studies have indicated that these types of passion are related to important outcomes in relation to the quality of experiences in different activities. From this arises the question about how an adolescent can develop a positive involvement in elite sport. The present study hypothesizes that aspirations could be antecedents for the development of a passion that leads to positive outcomes in sport experiences. The aim of this work was to analyze life aspirations of adolescent elite athletes and their relationship with the passion they have with respect to their sport. MethodsParticipants were 234 Argentine athletes (47.9% male, 52.1% female) aged between 12 and 16 years (M = 14.48, SD = 1.09) from National Sport Development Plan (Buenos Aires 2018) selected to train for the next Youth Olympic Games (YOG). All adolescents answered a sociodemographic questionnaire, Aspirations Index and Passion Scale. ResultsResults showed that boys had significantly higher scores than girls on wealth and fame aspirations, as well as on obsessive passion, while there were no significant differences depending on the type of sport (individual vs. team). For boys, personal growth predicted harmonious passion, while health and community contribution were for girls? harmonious passion. Fame was the only predictor of obsessive passion in the boys group. There were no significant predictors for girls? obsessive passion. DiscussionThese results support previous studies about the role of intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations in enabling of engagement and positive development in adolescent elite sports.