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Motivation is central to understanding athletes’ engagement, performance, and persistence in sport. Coaches play a crucial part in the physical and psychological development of athletes and are central figures in maintaining their motivation levels. This systematic review synthesizes and explores the associations between the variables that make up the motivational sequence proposed by the Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation (HMIEM): motivational climate, basic psychological needs (BPN), motivational regulation and behavioral outcomes. Following PRISMA guidelines, searches were conducted in Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus databases for studies published between January 1997 and May 2025, involving athletes aged 12 and older. Twenty-two studies met inclusion criteria, predominantly employing cross-sectional designs (86%), encompassing 10367 athletes. Findings revealed that task-involving motivational climates were positively associated with autonomous motivation and negatively related to controlled motivation. Basic psychological need satisfaction was positively linked to more autonomous forms of motivation, while autonomous motivation demonstrated positive associations with favorable behavioral, emotional, and cognitive outcomes. Conversely, ego-involving climates correlated negatively with autonomous motivation and positively with controlled motivation. These findings underscore the critical importance of coach-created motivational climates and psychosocial alignment within HMIEM for optimizing athletes’ motivational experiences and well-being.
Viveiros et al. (Tue,) studied this question.