Subjective well-being, emotional regulation and motivational guidance in high sport competition

Abstract

The sports context has been characterized as intense on emotional experiences. Emotional responses and the ability to regulate them, seem to be a central competence for sports success and can have impact on well-being and motivation. To study the relationship between subjective well-being, emotional regulation, motivational orientation, and sports performance, was carried out an exploratory study with 50 male athletes, aged between 14 and 15 years old, of a Portuguese soccer club. For that, the Subjective Happiness Scale, the Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents, and the Motivational Guidance Questionnaire for Sports were used. The results suggest that the motivational orientation, specifically, the ego orientation seems to be associated with high sport performance. Significant differences in terms of emotional regulation were also founded. The discussion of the results is accompanied by the signaling of implications for the psychological practices and the analysis of scenarios of future research in the field of excellence in sport.