A bayesian analysis of the motivation, motivational climate and anx-iety in young competitive team players

© 2015: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between the self-determinated motivation, the goal orientation and the perceived moti-vational climate and their impact on the cognitive and somatic components of the competitive anxiety in young athletes, and their acceptance of the use of cheating and gamemanship in sport. We administered PMCSQ, TEOSQ, BRSQ, CDED and SAS-2 to 270 football, handball and basket-ball players (Mean age = 14.67, SD = 1.53). Probabilistic relationships of dependence and independence of the variables were studied by a Bayesian network (BN), developed using Netica and Tetrad IV. After the validation of the BN, we instantiated hypothetical probability values of several de-pendent variables in order to analyze the variation of the probability of the independent variables. Results show different statistical dependence relationships between the self-determined motivation and achievement motivation, respect to the competitive anxiety, and also show a controversial relationship between the perceived motivational climate and the task and ego orientation of the players. It also shows the residual role of the somatic anxiety, and the instrumental role of the the use of cheating and ga-memanship.