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The social basis of motivation in sport

Motivation is defined by the American Psychological Association as "The impetus that gives purpose or direction to behaviour and operates in human at a conscious or unconscious level". Social psychology is the study of individuals in a social setting or context, the study of motivation falls under this investigative umbrella. Motivation is imperative in terms of sporting activities in enhancing enjoyment of sport, improving performance levels and can maximise professionalism of an athlete. Motivation toward sport would also increase overall level of excersize and reduce the risk of a sedentary lifestyle leading to significant health benefits such as reducing risks of coronary heart disease or stokes. Motivation is a complicated process, consisting of separate stages, different types of motivation and many underlying social processes that can impact on motivation in various ways all of which will be discussed within this article. Following this gaps and limitations of the theories and studies will be critically analysed. Many of the studies lack temporal validity in contemporary environments due to the time period where these paradigms were established. Alongside this, there are gaps in the research surrounding cultures outside of classical western cultures.

The effect of social influence

Social influence is the extent to which a persons attitudes, behaviours, or thoughts are changed based on the real or perceived pressure of other individuals. Social influence can be an external or an extrinsic motivator meaning that it motivates an individual from an influence outside of their own thoughts or feelings. Social influence comes in a variety of forms including conformity, obedience and social learning.

Conformity

Asch's Line Study (1951)

Conformity is a process where an individual changes beliefs, attitudes or behaviours to more closely align with individuals in a group setting. The concept of conformity was first established in 1951 by Solomon Asch, in which he conducted a study where singular participants would be in a group of 6-8 confederates, and they would look at a sample line next to 3 other lines and the naive participants would identify which line matched the sample line, answering after the confederates, who on 12 out of 18 trials would answer incorrectly. Participants would conform approximately 37% of the time with 75% of participants conforming at least once. This study marks the first documented discovery of conformity and how it can change attitudes within a participant, attitudes which can then allow a person to be more or less motivated. This works through group norms being established and being made clear to an individual which can then effect motivation through group orientated motivation, which could be attributed to sport that individuals within the group may have a common interest in. Furthermore, it has been found that athletes would be willing to conform to gain social acceptance, to boost self-esteem and further increase motivation toward the sport.

Obedience

Milgram's shock experiment (1961)

Obedience is a form of social influence, but unlike conformity, it is done in response to an order from someone of a higher status or authority. An authority figure in context could be the captain of a sporting team, a manager of a team or a head coach as these are positions that would hold a perceived higher status then the athlete themselves. This concept was first defined by Stanley Milgram in 1961 with his infamous 'shock' experiment where participants were paired with an actor confederate which they had to shock the actor with increasing voltage every time they answered a question wrong in another room, the shocks were not real, but appeared with warnings about the dangerous voltage, going all the way up to to 450 volts with warnings of death, while the actor would remark in discomfort and pain before eventually pretending to pass out. Despite this, 65% of participants shocked the confederate up to the highest voltage. The participants were willing to do this based on the orders of a man in a lab coat who claimed to be an experimenter, allowing the perception of an authority figure, which demonstrates the power of authority. This would apply to motivation as it allows for large attitude changes which can lead to an increase or decrease in overall enthusiasm, enjoyment and therefore, motivation.

Social learning theory

Social learning theory, established by Bandura, explains that another way in which individuals learn is through watching role models, and then assessing the outcome. This theory is based off Bandura's 'bobo doll' study, in which children observed adults (role models) demonstrate aggressive behaviour toward a bobo doll, which the children then replicated when presented with a bobo doll of their own. Vicarious reinforcement is an important process within this theory as this is where individuals learn consequences or rewards of observed behaviour, through watching the actions rather than by experiencing it themselves. Social learning theory indicates that motivational processes are involved in this learning process as motivation is needed to replicate the observed behaviour and if this is not present then behaviour is not replicated. In a sporting context this could lead to motivation in terms of watching a role model play exceptionally and receive praise publicly would then motivate the individual to attempt to replicate the behaviour.

Self-determination theory

Sel-determination theory developed by Ryan and Deci in 2000, is a theory that revolves around how motivation can be optimised by fulfilling 3 universal needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy means an individual has full perceived control of their behaviour and decisions which in a sporting context, would mean the athlete is able to be responsible for any action or behaviour. Competence is where an individual feels capable and effective, and within sport this would be illustrated through someone being confident within their abilities within the given sport. Finally relatedness, where an individual needs to feel connected to others through a sense of belonging, this would be demonstrated if an individual has a healthy relationship with their sporting team.

Types of motivation

There are many different theories surrounding types of motivation however some are more prominent then others. Intrinsic motivation refers to engaging in behaviour due to an internal drive and desire for the activity, it is self-driven and growth centred. In terms of sports, a study from Almargo et al (2020) found that intrinsic motivation predicted perceived performance and the intentions to continue to stay physically active, demonstrating the important of this self-driven form of motivation. In contrast, extrinsic motivation is aiming to participate in an activity based off external influences such as praise, approval or some sort of reward, it is not self-driven. Within the sporting world, this is present when individuals play sport for recognition socially or due to external pressures.

Another antagonistic pair of types of motivation are short-term and long-term motivations. This originates from McGregor's (1960) theory which opts to label short-term motivation as X motivation and long-term motivation as Y motivation. Short-term motivation would lack self-motivation, and assumes a lack of ambition, whereas long-term motivation implies seeking out responsibility, and high levels of self-motivation.

Gaps and limitations in motivation research

One large gap in current motivation, is due to the fact that contemporary studies have mostly focussed in indivdualistic and westernised countries such as America or England, meaning the research and proposed theories should not be innappropriately applied to collectivist or non-westernised countries as it would be an unrealistic generalisation. Due to the lack of cross-cultural research, there is a high risk of inaccurate application of these theories in non-westernised cultures, which would then lead to unneccesary changes in lifestyle in order to be more motivated when in reality this may be harmful to pre-existing cultural norms. This damages the credibility of these sources and explanations of motivation, greatly limiting its generalisable due to its ethnocentric nature, and sample biases. Therefore, this research is not be applicable to how motivation works in sport around the world.

Another criticism of motivation research, is that there is no precise way to measure motivation as it heavily relies on self report techniques which damages the internal validity of the study as the measurements that are gained using these methods may not be measuring the intended variable. This mean the findings of studies addressed relating to measuring personality, such as the aforementioned Almargo et al (2020), may be an untrue representation of true motivation and thus, conclusions from these studies cannot be drawn. Furthermore, self-report techniques, are known to be unreliable due to response bias from participants, such as social desirability bias where a participant may answer questions untruthfully as they want to seem more favourable in the eyes of the experimenter. Alternatively, the measurement of motivation should look to be more empirical to avoid these biases such as biological or neurological methods like heart rate measures, or cortisol measurements, as this would make these results more scientific and therefore reliable, which would increase the credibility of these studies, and reduce bias.

The research drawn on from social influence also presents issues, in the form of low external validity due to the experimental setting, which could limit the real-world applications these studies, and therefore the applicability they may have on motivation in sport. For example, Asch's line study (1951) has been criticised for lacking realism and ecological validity based on the laboratory conditions, claiming that this type of experiment cannot predict true field behaviour due to the unrealistic climate in which the original findings were demonstrated. However, there are notable advantages to the laboratory environments as it cold be argued that although they are artificial settings, it does allow for the scientific advancement of social processes by illustrating the capabilities, by having a controlled environment with less extraneous variables that could potentially impact findings of a study, making the results more replicable and reliable.

However, there are further issues with the temporal validity of these studies due to the age of these studies and the way contemporary society has changed since the release of these studies.

Conclusion

In conclusion is clear to see the range of social processes that are involved in the background of motivation. A large factor within this being conformity, and how it can change underlying attitudes and therefore, motivations toward sporting activity. This is further pushed by the idea of vicarious reinforcement, and Social learning theory, and watching role models leading to increases in motivation to try and replicate the behaviour of those that receive high levels of praise. Additionally, while obedience may not play as big of a role in motivation, it is an important process in understanding in why motivation may fluctuate based on the influence of the respected authority figures in an individuals life. Self-determination theory also offers explanations for the potential limitations of maximising this motivation by fulfilling the universal needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness. This is reinforced knowing the types of motivation intrinsic, extrinsic, long-term and short-term, as this can explain duration of motivation and varying intensities of motivation toward sporting activity. However, there are limitations ad gaps in the research, so future research should look to explore motivation in large range of cultures as well as use more empirical methods to measure motivation.