Achievement emotions in sport and exercise: Taxonomy and measurement

Achievement emotions are a common experience in sport and exercise, yet comprehensive frameworks for conceptualizing and measuring these emotions are lacking. To address this gap, we introduce a taxonomy to the sport and exercise domain that organizes achievement emotions by valence (positive, negative), arousal (activating, deactivating), and object focus (activity, prospective outcomes, retrospective outcomes). To provide a measure that is consistent with this taxonomy, we further introduce the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire – Sport and Exercise (AEQ-SE), a new instrument assessing prototypical emotions across all twelve resulting emotion categories. Across two independent samples (total N = 862), results from network modeling and regression analysis supported the relevance of valence, arousal, and object focus for capturing the structure of achievement emotions in sport and exercise. Moreover, AEQ-SE scales were systematically associated with key theoretical antecedents (control and value appraisals) and outcomes (satisfaction, motivation, sport and exercise behavior, indicators of well-being). Together, our findings provide empirical evidence for the proposed three-dimensional taxonomy and establish the AEQ-SE as a psychometrically sound tool for studying achievement emotions in sport and exercise contexts.