The relationship among perceived parental psychological control, socially prescribed perfectionism, fear of failure, and performance of adolescent athletes

The present study aimed to verify the sequential mediation effect of Socially Prescribed Perfectionism (SPP) and Fear of Failure (FF) in the relationship between perceived Parental Psychological Control (PPC) and the performance of Korean adolescent athletes. 208 Korean adolescent athletes completed the questionnaire including the Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control Scale, Socially Prescribed Perfectionism in the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory, and set of 8 questions for perceived performance. The collected data were analysed through descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equation model analysis using IBM SPSS (Statistics 25.0 and Amos 23.0, IBM Corp., USA). The results indicated a positive association between PPC and SPP, which was subsequently related to FF and athletes' performance. The 95% confidence intervals confirmed the significance of the sequential mediating effect of SPP and FF in the relationship between PPC and perceived performance, aligning with the hypothesised sequential mediation model. These findings underscore the crucial role parents play in the performance of adolescent athletes, as predicted by SPP and FF, offering valuable insights into the mechanisms that underlie such parental influence.