Positive peer relationships, social identity, and adaptive sport motivation in youth athletes

Organized sport provides youth with the opportunity to form interpersonal relationships and derive part of their identity from sport team membership. Though identities are negotiated within the context of interpersonal relationships, little research has examined how peer relationships may associate with athletes' social identity and downstream sport motivation. The purpose of this study was to examine whether positive peer relationships were associated with adaptive sport motivation by way of athlete social identity. High school athletes (N = 202, female n = 121, M_age = 16.1 years, SD_age = 1.3 years) completed established measures of friendship quality and peer acceptance, social identity (cognitive centrality, ingroup affect), and sport enjoyment, enthusiastic sport commitment, and autonomous motivation. Observed path analysis showed neither friendship quality nor peer acceptance was directly associated with enthusiastic sport commitment, sport enjoyment, nor autonomous motivation. Friendship quality was positively associated with cognitive centrality (β = 0.30) and ingroup affect (β = 0.20), and peer acceptance was positively associated with ingroup affect (β = 0.25). In turn, cognitive centrality was positively associated with enthusiastic sport commitment (β = 0.21) and autonomous motivation (β = 0.24). Ingroup affect was positively associated with enthusiastic sport commitment (β = 0.42), sport enjoyment (β = 0.55), and autonomous motivation (β = 0.46). The pattern of indirect effects was partially aligned with expectations. Results suggest that the motivational importance of peer relationships may, in part, operate through features of athletes’ identification with their sport team.