MOTIVATION, SATISFACTION, PERCEPTION AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE CAUSES OF SUCCESS IN SPANISH MASTER ATHLETES

The aim of this study was to discover their motivations, intrinsic satisfaction, perception and beliefs relating to causes of sporting success of the Spanish master athletes (35 and older) who train and compete on track. The aim was also to establish sufficiently reliable predictive models according to sex, in order to determine their motivations taking these psychological variables into account. We began with the hypothesis that they must have low amotivation, moderate extrinsic motivation and high intrinsic motivation. It was possible to predict intrinsic motivation through high scores for task orientation, effort and enjoyment and low scores for boredom and use of deception techniques. It was possible to predict extrinsic motivation through high scores for ego orientation, enjoyment and use of deception techniques and low scores for effort and boredom. It was possible to predict amotivation through high scores for boredom and use of deception techniques and low scores for enjoyment. The results confirmed that the highest form of motivation was intrinsic, particularly in women. In both sexes, perception of sporting success by task is similar to ego; for both it is very satisfying to win medals and, better still, to break records within their age group through the effort required for their speciality area, with use of deception techniques proving to be fairly unimportant. Finally, we were able to establish predictive models for motivations which largely coincide with our hypothesis and references.