The effect of previous team environment on the current motivation in Japanese varsity soccer players

Sport psychologists have investigated the effect of team environments on athletes' performance and mental health, revealing that team environments played salient roles in forming athletes' psychological processes. Currently, the scholars' interests are towards the effect of the current team environments the athletes are immersed in, and the effect of their past has not gained as much attention. Given that research on social psychology in sports settings has been built on the premise that the athletes' minds are shaped through interaction with their environment, the systematic differences across the past team environments should also impact the athletes' psychological processes. As such, we examined how past team environments affect varsity soccer players' motivation by comparing players from public schools, private schools, and club teams in high school.

In the current study, 159 varsity soccer players (86 from public schools, 45 from private schools, and 28 from club teams) completed the questionnaires to measure the degree of resources, performance emphasis within a team, intra-team competition, and self-enhancement motivation, in which players perceive themselves positively.

The results demonstrated that club teams showed the highest degree of resources, followed by private school teams, then public school soccer teams. The higher degree of resources was related to the emphasis on the enhancement of individual performance within a team. This emphasis was further associated with intra-team competition, which was eventually related to self-enhancement motivation.

The results imply the significance of past team environments on athletes. To deepen the understanding of psychological processes in athletes, the effect of other past team environments in which they were previously immersed is suggested to be further explored.