Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Amy Gentzler.

Abstract

Despite large amounts of child sport participation, research suggests that this activity is not always associated with positive outcomes for youth. This study examined factors that might contribute to discrepant findings associated with youth sports participation. Specifically, parental pressure and support in competitive soccer families and its relation to their children's general emotion regulation were examined. Participants were 91 parent-child dyads (49 males, 42 female, 67 moms, 23 dads) with children between the ages of 8-12 years (M = 10.24, SD = 1.19). Children completed several self-report measures on their parent's pressure and support behaviors in general and in soccer, as well as on their own regulation of anger, sadness, and worry. More parental pressure in soccer was marginally related to more sadness dysregulation in children, although this relationship was no longer significant after accounting for general parenting pressure. Results indicated that more support in soccer was related to more dysregulation of worry. However, this relationship only emerged after including general support in the model. Additionally, more pressure in soccer was marginally related to less coping with worry after controlling for general parenting behaviors. A significant interaction indicated that more pressure was related to less coping with worry at low levels of support, whereas more pressure was associated with more coping with worry at high levels of support. However, these results should be interpreted with caution due to nonsignificant simple slopes. Implications for parenting in sports and the socialization of emotions within specific domains are discussed.

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