Exploring the Role of Resilience and Basic Psychological Needs as Antecedents of Enjoyment and Boredom in Female Sports

Positive psychology defends that resilience and satisfaction of the basic psychological needs contribute to predict athletes’ quality of engagement and optimal development. Based on self-determination theory the present study aims to test a model analyzing the relationship between young athletes’ resilience, satisfaction and thwarting of their basic psychological needs, and their experiences of enjoyment and boredom within their sport practice. Participants of the study are 641 female football and basketball players (Mage=14.74±3.91). Results of the structural equation models show that athletes’ resilience is positively associated with satisfaction of basic psychological needs and negatively with its thwarting. Players’ psychological needs satisfaction is positively associated with their enjoyment and negatively with their boredom, whereas needs thwarting is positively associated with their boredom and negatively with their experience of enjoyment. Finally, the results show the total mediation of the satisfaction and thwarting of the psychological needs in the relationship between resilience and experiences of enjoyment and boredom. These results emphasize the importance of developing athletes’ resilience as it promotes satisfaction and prevents thwarting of the basic psychological needs fostering quality of sport engagement.