Predictors of Sportspersonship

People desire to have positive self-esteem. Research by Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette (2003) has demonstrated that late adolescents buttress their sense of self-worth through at least seven different means. Focusing primarily on two such contingencies (seeking to support self-esteem through virtuous behavior and through competitive success), the present study examined the ability of contingencies of self-worth to predict sportspersonship in a sample (n=1863) of freshmen collegiate football, soccer, and volleyball players. It was hypothesized that the virtue contingency would be associated positively, and the competitive success contingency negatively, with sportspersonship. In addition, it was hypothesized that the relationship between self-esteem contingencies and sportspersonship would be mediated by contesting orientations and moral disengagement. Both correlational analyses and structural equation modeling largely supported hypotheses. Exploratory correlational analyses incorporating all seven self-worth contingencies revealed other relationships between the contingencies and study variables that offer directions for future research.