Highlights • Task and social cohesion positively predicted perceived relatedness with teammates. • Relatedness with teammates positively predicted self-determined motivation. • Cohesion predicted burnout via relatedness and self-determined motivation . • Task cohesion also directly and negatively predicted athlete burnout. • The supported model suggests greater team cohesion links to less athlete burnout. Abstract Objectives: Athlete burnout is the result of a maladaptive sport experience that is influenced by the social context. A salient social contextual feature of youth sport is group cohesion. Cohesion may link with burnout through its association with relatedness and self-determined motivation. The current study was designed to test a model in which cohesion associates with burnout by way of relatedness and self-determined motivation. Design: Cross-sectional survey-based study. Method: Female youth soccer athletes (N = 276; M age = 14.9 years, SD = 1.3) completed measures of task and social cohesion, relatedness, self-determined motivation, and burnout. Results: Task (ß = 0.26) and social (ß = 0.59) cohesion associated with perceptions of relatedness. In turn, relatedness positively linked with self-determined motivation (ß = 0.38), which in turn negatively associated with global burnout (ß = -0.79). The indirect effects from task cohesion to burnout (ß = -0.08) and from social cohesion to burnout (ß = -0.18) by way of relatedness and self-determined motivation were significant. Conclusions: Results support the proposed model whereby greater cohesion associates with an athlete`s feelings of relatedness, which links to more self-determined motivation and, consequently, lower burnout perceptions. Future research is needed to assess support for causality of these links and explore how contextual factors such as the teammate-created motivational climate contributes to group cohesion and relatedness perceptions within this burnout model.
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