Recently, the skill to play games has led to the professionalization of the activity in the form of “eSports” (electronic sports). Despite the popularity of eSports, little is known about its professional players from a psychological perspective. Given the importance of the coach-created environment in the athletes’ motivational processes, this study aimed to investigate the key psychological dimensions of the coach-created climate in 75 Brazilian professional players of League of Legends (LoL) considering the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT). Fourteen hypotheses were tested, of which seven were confirmed. The empowering climate was a predictor of basic psychological-needs satisfaction and indirectly influenced autonomous motivation. The need satisfaction had a significant impact on both autonomous motivation and on lack of motivation, which, in turn, explained 56% of the variance in well-being and the intention to keep playing eSports. The disempowering climate was a predictor of psychological-needs thwarting but had no significant impact on autonomous motivation or lack of motivation. The results obtained support SDT and AGT in the context of eSports and were similar to those conducted with athletes from traditional sports, indicating that the empowering-and-disempowering-coaching-climates conceptualization applies not only to traditional sports athletes but also to professional eSports players.

The objectives of this study were to assess the psychometric properties of the Coach-created Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ-C) by testing four different hypotheses. A procedure of translation and adaptation of the instrument between different languages and cultures was carried out. A total of 350 national level Brazilian athletes (aged between 15 and 17 years; mean = 17.0, SD = 1.7) completed the questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM) were performed. Consistent with previous work on the EDMCQ-C, all solutions failed to achieve suitable levels of fit for a hierarchical model represented by five climate dimensions (autonomy-supportive, controlling, task-involving, ego-involving, and socially-supportive) and two global dimensions (empowering and disempowering). The 2-ESEM solution provided a satisfactory fit for the first-order model with two global factors supported. The 2-ESEM version of the questionnaire showed adequate predictive and discriminant validity, good internal consistency, and invariance across gender. Such results suggest that the EDMCQ-C is a promising scale to assess Brazilian athletes’ perception of the over-arching empowering and disempowering features of the coach-created motivational climate.

El objetivo de este trabajo fue adaptarse interculturalmente y examinar las propiedades psicométricas de la Performance Perfectionism Scale for Sport(PPS-S) para uso en la población brasileña. Este instrumento fue basado en el modelo teórico de Hewitt y Flett y desarrollado por Hill, Appleton y Mallinson para medir el perfeccionismo en un contexto específico del desempeño deportivo. La validación del instrumento siguió las directrices para adaptaciones transculturales de instrumentos de medidas en ciencias de la salud. Después de la adaptación cultural de la escala original en inglés, el instrumento fue aplicado en 953 atletas (15-16 años) de ambos sexos. El modelo original de la escala fue probado, con análisis factorial confirmatorio, utilizando el software LISREL (versión 9.30). Los resultados mostraron un ajuste satisfactorio con 3 factores y 9 ítems (χ2 = 116,15 p <0,001, RMSEA = 0,063, GFI = 0,974, AGFI = 0,961, NFI = 0,937, CFI = 0,928, NNFI = 915, χ2 / gl = 4,83). Las pruebas satisfactorias de consistencia interna también se generaron a través del análisis de cargas factoriales y valores t.Contrariamente, los índices de alfa de Cronbach y confiabilidad compuesta no fueron adecuados en la variable latente que se refiere al perfeccionismo auto-orientado. La varianza media extractada carecía de buen ajuste y sólo asumió validez convergente en uno de los tres factores del instrumento.La validez discriminante también sugiere evidencia poco contundente y, por lo tanto, más estudios con otras muestras de atletas son necesarios para evaluar de forma más adecuada las propiedades psicométricas del instrumento y afirmar su uso adecuado.