examining the relationship between sport-based perfectionism and perceptions of parenting styles among male youth hockey players
abstract
in the past, most studies investigating parenting in youth sport have failed to
include the athlete’s perspective and the possible influence his/her individual
personality traits might have on those perceptions. this study addressed this concern by
examining whether perceptions of parenting styles differ in relation to youth athletes’
perfectionist orientations. given the multiple roles that parents play in their child’s
athletic career, that sensitivity to parental expectations and criticism are central
characteristics of perfectionism, and that sport is an environment conducive to the
development of perfectionist tendencies, the importance of parental criticism and praise
may be exaggerated in the case of perfectionist athletes. however, there are different
approaches to the conceptualization of perfectionism (i.e., the categorical approach vs.
the dimensional approach), with each leading to different predictions as to how
perfectionists perceive significant others. additionally, the only other study to examine
the association between perfectionism and parenting style within youth sport (i.e.,
sapieja, dunn, & holt, 2011) was limited in that it focused on only one of baumrind’s
(1991) three primary parenting styles and only sampled youth athletes from the sport of
soccer. the present study took these points into account by a) using an analytical
technique (i.e., cluster analysis) that allowed for the consideration of both categorical
and dimensional approaches to perfectionism, b) assessing perceptions of baumrind’s
authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, and c) examining if
sapieja et al.’s (2011) results generalize to athletes from the sport of ice hockey. a total
of 93 male youth hockey players (m age = 16.21 years; sd = 1.41) completed multiple
measures of sport-based perfectionism and a measure of perception of parenting styles.
cluster analyses conducted on the self-report perfectionism data produced multiple cluster solutions. the final three-cluster solution was chosen based on fit indices and
alignment with the dimensional approach to perfectionism. the three independent
clusters were labelled high strivings-high concerns, moderate strivings-moderate
concerns, and moderate strivings-low concerns perfectionists. inter-cluster comparisons
revealed that high strivings-high concerns perfectionists perceived authoritarian
parenting to a greater degree than moderate strivings-low concerns perfectionists. high
strivings-high concerns perfectionists also perceived authoritative parenting to a greater
degree than moderate strivings-moderate concerns perfectionists. when considered
alongside past research (e.g., hewitt, flett, & singer, 1995; kawamura, frost, &
harmatz, 2002; sapieja et al., 2011) these results suggest a complex relationship
between perfectionism and perceptions of parenting style among youth athletes. to add
clarity to this relationship, future research should consider: incorporating the
perspectives of female youth athletes, determining whether relationships differ when
perceptions of a single parent’s parenting style is considered, and investigating if results
extend to perceptions of coaching style.