Abstract
Athletes’ emotional self-regulation is valuable for performance, and athletes may also regulate teammates’ emotions for social and performance purposes (Jones, 2012). This study examined athletes’ emotional self-regulation (ERS-Improve and ERS-Worsen) and regulation of others’ emotions (ERO-Improve and ERO-Worsen) and associations with peer climate, sport enjoyment, and commitment. Athletes (N = 451, M age = 16.3, SD = 1.0) from 38 teams completed Emotional Regulation of Others and Self scale (Niven et al., 2011), a measure of sport enjoyment and commitment (Scanlan et al., 1993), and the Peer Motivational Climate in Youth Sport Questionnaire (Ntoumanis & Vazou, 2005). Multilevel analyses were conducted to predict athletes’ sport enjoyment and commitment as a function of their emotional self-regulation (level 1) and the team’s emotion regulation of others and peer climate (level 2). At level 1, athletes’ higher ERS-Improve was associated with higher commitment and enjoyment, and lower ERS-Worsen was also associated with higher enjoyment. At level 2, higher team perceptions of task climate predicted athletes’ higher enjoyment scores, while team-level task climate, ego climate, ERO-Improve and ERO-Worsen all predicted athletes’ commitment. There was a significant negative cross-level interaction for the negative relationship between athletes’ ERS-worsen with enjoyment, such that the relationship was stronger in teams with a lower average ego climate score. There was a significant negative cross-level interaction for the positive relationship between athletes’ ERS-Improve with commitment such that the relationship was stronger in teams with a lower average Task Climate score. Findings suggest that individual self-regulation of emotion and the team-level task climate influenced enjoyment. Athletes’ self-regulation as well as the team’s interpersonal emotion regulation and peer climate all influenced athletes’ commitment. The strength of the associations between athletes’ self-regulation with sport enjoyment and commitment depended on the task and ego motivational climates of the team.Acknowledgments: This research was supported by a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to the first author.