Abstract
Athlete engagement is a positive state of mind capturing athletes' feelings of enthusiasm, confidence, vigour, and dedication toward their sport (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007). This study examined whether athletes with different perfectionism profiles differed across these engagement characteristics and tested whether those differences were moderated by coach autonomy support. A sample of 191 male youth club basketball and football players (Mage = 16.59, SD = 0.67) completed measures of athlete engagement, sport perfectionism, and coach autonomy support. Latent profile analysis was used to categorize participants according to their standings across perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. A 3-class model was adopted with groups representing non-perfectionistic athletes, moderately perfectionistic athletes, and highly perfectionistic athletes. Multiple regression was then used to test for class differences and moderation effects (see Hayes & Montoya, 2017). Across each engagement characteristic, highly perfectionistic athletes reported higher levels in comparison to moderately perfectionistic athletes regardless of levels of coach autonomy support. On vigour and dedication, though, class differences involving non-perfectionistic athletes were moderated by coach autonomy support. For both characteristics, non-perfectionistic athletes reported lower levels than highly perfectionistic athletes when coach autonomy support was low. However, non-perfectionistic athletes and highly perfectionistic athletes did not differ across vigour and dedication when coach autonomy support was moderate-to-high. In discussion, we compare the adopted 3-class model with those produced in past research, address issues surrounding perfectionism functionality, and speculate as to why fostering autonomy support may have the greatest impact on engagement among athletes low, but not high, in perfectionism.
