The impact of abusive coach behavior on athletes’ motivation: analyzing the mediating role of psychological stress

Abstract

Introduction: Coaching in sports plays a paramount role in guiding, motivating, improving, and enhancing the overall development of athletes for better performance in competition. Meanwhile, negative coaching behavior may have a detrimental effect on the well-being of athletes and boost psychological stress of athletes, which directly decreases the motivation and performance of athletes.   The present study inquired into the influence of abusive coach behavior on athletes’ motivation, mediated by psychological stress. 

Method: Survey model data were gathered from 503 student-athletes (male = 192: 62% and female = 113: 38%) from different public sector universities, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Structure equation model was utilized to test the hypothesized model.

Results: The findings revealed that abusive coach behavior has a significant and negative influence on athletes’ motivation, while also having a positive and significant effect on the psychological stress of student-athletes. Meanwhile, the psychological stress has partial mediation in the relationship between abusive coach behavior and athletes’ motivation.

Discussion: Finally, the output of the study underlined the need for the coaches and administration of sports to comprehend the controlling, strict, and abusive behavior of coaches that cause to increase psychological stress and anxiety which ultimately decrease motivation among student-athletes in sports training and competition, and establish some proper code of conduct to regulate such kind of abusive behavior for the well-being and performance of student-athletes at university level.