The role of motivational climate for sense of vitality in organized youth grassroots football players: Do harmonious and obsessive types of passion play a mediating role?

Abstract

The mediating role of types of passion in the relationships between motivational climates and subjective vitality was examined among 283 experienced young Norwegian grassroots football players (aged 12-16 years). A Structural Equation Model (SEM) based path model revealed that mastery climate predicted subjective vitality directly as well as mediated by harmonious passion and through a chain in which harmonious passion fuelled obsessive passion, in turn facilitating vitality. The former was the stronger mediation path of the two. A performance climate was unrelated to obsessive passion. The pattern of results generally supports the proposed motivational climate–passion–vitality link. However, the observed mediation chain involving also a positive mastery climate–obsessive passion–vitality link invites further examinations to better understand both young football players’ subjective meaning making of harmonious and obsessive passion.