Identity Work in Athletes: A Systematic Review of the Literature.

The identity work process allows athletes to achieve a continuous development, revision, and maintenance of themselves. It provides insight into their self-perceptions and particularly intensifies during critical life events. While this process has been widely acknowledged, scant attention has been given to explicitly identifying the specific activities (i.e., identity work modes) involved in athletic identity work and integrating an overarching framework to inform coherent and continuous identities. Thus, we conducted a systematic review of the athletic identity literature to assess how this perspective is represented. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we reviewed 54 articles and analyzed the overall characteristics, bibliographical networks, and accumulated empirical findings. Through this process, we were able to identify the impact of having a strong athletic identity on key variables within and outside of sport. Based on the findings, we examined how identity work modes are depicted and discussed in the literature. Further discussion on how athletic identity literature can contribute to the broader body of knowledge is outlined.

Career Identity Statuses Derived From the Career Identity Development Inventory: A Person-Centered Approach.

The Career Identity Development Inventory (CIDI) was designed to be used at the person level to assign individuals in a career identity status that would indicate how they approached a career identity crisis and identify developmental needs to resolve career identity concerns. However, given that CIDI has not been tested using a person-centered approach, the first aim of this study was to demonstrate whether and how CIDI can be used to determine individuals' career identity statuses that are theoretically informed by Marcia's identity status paradigm and neo-Eriksonian identity literature. Using a sample of 410 US college graduates, we identified, through a cluster analytic approach, eight groups of distinct career identity profiles, from which four groups resembled Marcia's identity statuses and four other groups were unique variants of identity statuses that extended this paradigm and illustrated a more gradual process of career identity development. This person-centered approach enabled us to subsequently provide evidence of the criterion validity of CIDI, which was the second aim of this study. We examined how the eight career identity statuses derived from the cluster analysis differed according to validation-criterion variables and found that individuals assigned to statuses characterized by high levels of career identity commitments tended to have better career and psychosocial functioning than individuals assigned to statuses characterized by low levels of career identity commitments. Implications along with directions for future research are discussed with respect to developmental challenges associated with career exploration and critical processes of forming a constructed career identity.

Is There a Reformation Into Identity Achievement for Life After Elite Sport? A Journey of Identity Growth Paradox During Liminal Rites and Identity Moratorium.

Athletes' identity development upon retirement from elite sport was examined through a model of self-reformation that integrates and builds on the theoretical underpinnings of identity development and liminality, while advancing seven propositions and supporting conceptual conjectures using findings from research on athletes' transition out of sport. As some elite athletes lose a salient athletic identity upon retiring from sport, they experience an identity crisis and enter the transition rites feeling in between their former athletic identity and future identity post-sport life, during which a temporary identity moratorium status is needed for identity growth. Given the developmental challenges encountered in moratorium and psychosocial processes necessary to establish a new, fulfilling identity for life after elite sport, we identified key conditions, triggers, and processes that advance how a journey of identity growth paradox experienced during liminality serves as a catalyst toward identity achievement. Elite athletes must be encouraged to persevere in this challenging identity search and delay commitments for as long as it is necessary to achieve identity growth despite experiencing uncomfortable feelings of confusion, void, and ambiguity during the liminal phase. Reforming into an achieved identity for life after elite sport would corroborate the successful navigation of transition, as elite athletes evolved into a synthesized sense of self by cementing, through a negotiated adaptation pathway, constructed identity commitments that will provide new beginnings and meaningful directions to their life after elite sport.

Shifting the Paradigm: A Constructivist Analysis of Agency and Structure in Sustained Youth Sport Participation.

To examine the impact of the relationship between agency and structure on sustained participation in youth sport, semi-structured interviews were conducted with male college soccer players. The participants' accounts (N = 20) of their youth careers were analyzed through the lens of Structuration Theory (ST) framed in a constructivist paradigm. ST supports the significance of the recursive relationship between agent and structure in-context in the co-construction of experiences, and provides a framework for analyzing effects of compounding experiences gained across time and space as they influence sport continuation. Clarity of expectations imposed in-context and the athlete's perceived impact on the structure evidenced, through deductive thematic analysis, as the most salient determinants of the perceived valence of the youth sport environment. The agent's perceived holding of authoritative resources across time and contexts was a critical dimension of the participants' continuation in youth sport, substantiating ST as a theoretical lens, situated in a constructivist paradigm, that might add depth to understanding patterns in participation and attrition.

An Application of the Social Cognitive Career Theory Model of Career Self-Management to College Athletes' Career Planning for Life After Sport.

Drawing on Lent and Brown (2013) recently developed Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) model of Career Self-Management (CSM), we aimed to determine the key predictors and underlying theoretical mechanisms of college athletes' career planning processes for life after sport. Ten variables were operationalized (i.e., career planning for life after sport, career decision self-efficacy, career goals, perceived career planning support from coaches, perceived career planning barriers, conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness) to assess the hypothesized CSM model. A survey design was utilized on a sample of 538 NCAA Division I college athletes in the United States to test the model. The measurement and hypothesized models were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The measurement model demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity for all measures. Several significant direct, indirect, and moderating relationships of the cognitive, contextual, and personality variables on career planning were observed. The CSM model was found to be a useful theoretical framework that explained 62.7% of the variance on career planning. The model, along with the validated measures that support it, can help both researchers and practitioners to leverage facilitating (i.e., self-efficacy, career goals, conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion) and impeding (i.e., career barriers) factors of the career planning processes in their work.

CONSUMERS' INTENTION TO ATTEND SOCCER EVENTS: APPLICATION AND EXTENSION OF THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR.

The purpose of this study was to identify important factors of consumers' intention to attend professional soccer events among Saudi Arabian soccer fans. To explore the decision-making process of this relatively understudied population, the theory of planned behavior was used as theoretical background. Particularly, this study measured the effect of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (time and money), and game importance on intention to attend, and examined the moderating role of commitment. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using 231 Saudi university students (M = 21.9 yr., SD = 1.21) indicate that attitude and game importance were significantly related to attendance intention. The effect of subjective norms was significant only for the low commitment group and game importance was more important for the low than the high commitment group.

The relationship between organizational support, work-family conflict, and the job-life satisfaction of university coaches.

This study examined the relationship between organizational support, work-family conflict, and job and life satisfaction among coaches. Data from collegiate head coaches with families (N = 253) were gathered through a mailed questionnaire. Results from a series of covariance structure models indicated that a partially mediated model was the best fitting model, chi2 = (255, N = 253) 461.20, p <. 001; root mean error of approximation = . 05; comparative fit index = .95; parsimonious normed fit index = .71. In partial support of the study hypotheses, the results supported full mediation of the direct effect from organizational support to life satisfaction. Work-family conflict partially mediated the relationship between organizational support and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction partially mediated the effect of organizational support and work-family conflict to life satisfaction.

Treatment discrimination among assistant coaches of women's teams.

The purpose of this study was to examine organizational treatment discrimination (i.e., when members of a group receive fewer rewards, opportunities, or resources than they legitimately deserve based on job-related criteria) in the context of women's athletics. Data were collected from 170 assistant coaches of women's teams (i.e., women's basketball, softball, track, volleyball, soccer, and tennis). Results indicate that women's perceived work experiences and outcomes were comparable, and sometimes better, than those of men. We present competing explanations for this finding. First, it is possible that these women were not subjected to treatment discrimination. Alternatively, it is possible that this demonstrates the existence of the "paradox of the contented working woman." Additional analyses indicate that work experiences explained a large portion of the variance in organizational commitment and turnover intentions, thereby demonstrating their importance in the workplace.