3. INSTALACTON EXPERIMENTAL
4.2 PREPARACION DE LOS CATALIZADORES
Grit and mental toughness are proven predictors of desirable outcomes in many
competitive contexts (Bell, Hardy & Beattie, 2013; Duckworth et al., 2007, 2011; Hardy et al., 2014). The examination of grit and mental toughness in relation to the SDT allows for a holistic view of the motivational correlates which may drive athlete performance and well-being. The main purpose of this current study was to explore how coaching behaviors impacted grit and mental toughness through the self-determined motivation of athletes. Additionally, we were interested in examining the relationship between grit, mental toughness, perceptions of coaching behaviors and self-determined motivation.
I hypothesized that grit and mental toughness would have a significant moderate
relationship and unique variance. This hypothesis was partially supported by data analysis which showed the relationship between grit and mental toughness were significant but weak. These results show a similar but smaller relationship between grit and mental toughness found in previous research (Credé et al., 2016; Joseph, 2015). However, this difference may be explained through the differences is population and instrumentation. The study by Joseph (2015) used the Grit-R where our study used the Grit-S which may have affected these relationships.
Additionally, the meta-analysis by Credé et al. (2016) examined studies measuring grit in relation to student academic performance and retention, whereas, we looked at grit in student athletes. This difference in population and context may have affected the results. Future research may wish to focus on exact replication to provide confirmation and better explore the possible differences in variance among a myriad of populations. This information would help aid in the developing more valid measures of grit and mental toughness in athletes
We also found, as predicted, mental toughness had a significant positive relationship with autonomous motivation and negative relationships with controlled motivation. This supported our hypothesis that grit and mental toughness would be significantly related to autonomous motivation and negatively related to controlled motivation. These findings also correspond with Mahoney et al. (2014), which exhibited the same directional relationship to mental toughness’s with known antecedents of autonomous and controlled motivation. To our best knowledge, this is the first study to inspect grit in relation to self-determined motivation. Thus, we present the unique finding that grit shares a significant positive relationship with autonomy motivation and inverse relationship with controlled motivation. Meaning that environments which support autonomy motivation may facilitate the development of grit.
Of note, mental toughness (r = .63) had a much stronger association with autonomous motivation than grit (r = .22). It was expected that mental toughness would have a strong relationship with autonomous motivation based on past research (Gucciardi et al., 2009; Kaiser et al., 2009; Hardy et al., 2013; Weinstein & Ryan, 2011) as both constructs present similar coping mechanisms which allow individuals to have lower levels of distress. However, it was also hypothesized that, due to the link between interest-taking in both autonomous motivation (Weinstein & Ryan, 2011) and grit (Duckworth, 2016), these constructs would be more strongly related. The strength of correlations may have been affected by wording within the measures, as the MTI was developed with athletes in mind (Gucciardi et al., 2015) whereas the Grit-S
measure was crafted with a more general population in mind. Future research may wish to develop a measure of grit specific to sport and re-examine grit’s relationship with the study variables from this study.
We also found, as hypothesized, mental toughness was positively associated with autonomy-supportive coaching and inversely related to controlling coaching which confirms previous findings by Mahoney et al. (2014). These same directional relationships were found between grit and coaching behaviors (H2b), which to our knowledge is a unique finding of this study. This suggests that coaches who interact with their athletes in an autonomy-supportive manner may help facilitate grit and mental toughness in their athletes, while controlling coaches may thwart the development of grit and mental toughness. This relationship is important to continue to publicly validate as it is the opinion of many coaches that the perseverance element in the definitions of grit and mental toughness is developed through aversive coaching behaviors must be utilized (Owusu-Sekyere & Gervis, 2014). It may be imperative for developers of coaching education to explicitly describe the benefits of mental toughness and grit in sport. Then detail how providing athletes with choices, non-controlling feedback, reasons for consequences and promoting enjoyment can help facilitate the growth of these beneficial traits.
The most practically significant findings of this study come from our modified
mediational model (Figure 2) which examined the potential mediation effects of self-determined motivation grit, mental toughness and coaching behaviors. In agreement with past research (Mahoney et al., 2014), autonomy supportive coaching was found to have an indirect effect on mental toughness. As expected autonomy-supportive coaching predicted both mental toughness and grit. These findings indicate that coaches who wish to positively impact their athlete’s levels of mental toughness and grit should adopt an autonomy-supportive coaching style. We also found that the results (Figure 2) did not support the predicted indirect effect of autonomy- supportive coaching behavior on grit. However, uniquely our model did show a significant direct, indirect and total negative effect of controlling coaching behaviors on grit. This is a
meaningful finding as it indicates that controlling coaching behaviors may thwart grit. Past research has shown that controlling coaching behaviors can undermine intrinsic motivation (Amorose & Horn, 2000) and may pair sports with negative experiences (Conroy & Coatsworth, 2007). This de-satiation of sport from positive experiences may cause athletes to have a
decreased interest and passion which theoretically may thwart development of grit. Future research may wish to examine how specific outcomes of controlling coaching may effect grit as these impacts may be impactful to athlete development.
A final important finding of this study was that our model showed mental toughness was not significantly affected directly or indirectly by controlling coaching behaviors. This is a noticeable finding as it suggests proposals by previous research that mental toughness can alter how athletes’ perceptions of coaching behaviors influence their performance (Nicholls, Morley & Perry, 2016; Gucciardi et al.,2009) may be true. In concordance with other studies (Bell et al., 2013; Kaiseler, et al., 2009; Hardy et al., 2013; Mahoney et al., 2014) we propose that this lack of an effect may be attributed to the ability of mentally tough individuals to successfully navigate stressors and prepare coping responses to potentially punishing events before that are affected by them (Hardy et al., 2013). This theory is based of Hardy et al. (2013)'s neuropsychological model of mental toughness which further explains the neurological mechanisms of mental toughness. Through testing of their model, Hardy et al. (2013) discovered that mental toughness
is significantly and positively related to an individual’s punishment sensitivity when their reward sensitivity was low. What this information suggests is that mentally tough people may be more sensitive to punishment and less sensitive to rewards than their counterparts may. Enabling those with greater levels of mental toughness to detect threat at quicker rate than less mentally tough people. This early detection of threat allows for a greater amount of time to prepare and
implement effective coping strategies (Hardy et al, 2013). In line with this theory we propose that mental toughness may have a potential protective qualities on undesirable outcomes
associated with controlling coaching behavior. Specifically, we suggest that an important line of future research would be to re-examine the variables within this study how mental toughness may moderate the effect of coaching behavior on self-determined motivation and grit.
Limitations
The greatest limitation of this study is that it was a cross-sectional study, as such it is possible the study variables have different directions of relationships than those examined by this study. As stated above, the ordering of variables within the modified-mediational model also may better explain some aspects of this research which due to time constraint we were unable to analyze. Future research may with to re-examine to ordering and potential bi-directional nature of grit, mental toughness, self-determined motivation and coaching behaviors. Another
limitation of this current study include the disproportionate ratio of male to female participants which if balanced may present difference in strength of relationships found in this study. Past research (Amorose & Horn, 2000) suggests that female athletes have lower reported levels of self- determined motivation and are more impacted by certain elements of controlling coaching behavior. However, the differences found between male and female perceptions of coach's behaviors had mean level differences and shared directionality. Future research in this area with proportionate gender ratios is needed to rule out or include gender as factor which may affect the study variables and model, however, given the nature of the study variables it is unlikely any significant differences would be found.
This was a study which utilized self-report data as such it is possible that individuals may have responded in a less than true manner to make themselves appear more socially desirable.
Future research should focus on examining the inter-rater reliability of teammates to confirm self-reported responses. Additionally, as these authors have no knowledge of existing research examining the inter-rater reliability of the Grit-S measure exploring this connection may be of some interest to other researchers. Additionally, participants in this study were recruited form a convenience sample of Midwestern student-athletes whose ideals and perceptions may be different that individuals of other geographical areas. As Bandura (2002), states while globalization is allowing for a greater generalizability of motivational and affective human processes a cross-cultural variance still exists. Theoretically, this may alter the manner in which perceptions of coaching behavior are formed and perceived coaching behavior effects self- determined motivation, grit and mental toughness. This merits future research examining the variables from this study with populations form different cultures to expand upon the
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