Abstract
The purpose was to examine whether cohesion served as a mediator between athlete leadership and athlete satisfaction in youth sport. The participants were 205 youth athletes (Mage = 15.01 years; SD = 1.27). Each athlete completed a questionnaire that assessed perceptions of formal and informal athlete leader behaviours using the Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980), cohesion using the Youth Sport Environment Questionnaire (Eys et al., 2009), and athlete satisfaction using the Athlete Satisfaction Questionnaire (Riemer & Chelladurai, 1998). The following mediation relationships were found: (a) task cohesion partially mediated relations between formal task athlete leadership and team task athlete satisfaction, (b) task cohesion fully mediated relations between formal task athlete leadership and individual task athlete satisfaction, (c) social cohesion partially mediated relations between formal social athlete leadership and social athlete satisfaction, (d) task cohesion partially mediated relations between informal task athlete leadership and team task athlete satisfaction, (e) task cohesion fully mediated relations between informal task athlete leadership and individual task athlete satisfaction, and finally (f) social cohesion partially mediated relations between informal social athlete leadership and social athlete satisfaction. Findings from the present study augment the group dynamics literature as theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
