Commitment

Sport commitment is a central motivational construct because it goes right to the heart of athletes’ persistent pursuit of their sport. Simply put, it is a psychological state explaining why athletes do what they do. There are two types of sport commitment: enthusiastic and constrained. Enthusiastic commitment (EC) is the psychological construct representing the desire and resolve to persist in a sport over time. Conceptualized recently to provide a more complete picture of commitment, constrained commitment (CC) is the psychological construct representing perceptions of obligation to persist in a sport over time. Knowledge of the sources of both types of commitment is critical to understanding the commitment process. These sources are presented as part of the sport commitment model (SCM) detailed next.

The SCM explains the complex process of commitment by encompassing the sources of both types of commitment, and their predicted behavioral consequence: actual persistence in one's sport. The SCM has been tested, modified, clarified, and expanded from the time it was first introduced in the literature in 1993. Many researchers have contributed to this progress, and using the combination of quantitative survey and qualitative interview methods has increased significantly the depth with which we understand what it is that creates commitment. The sources of commitment are presented in this entry in the following manner. First, every source in the SCM is defined. Next, the hypothesized or explored relationships between the sources and EC and then CC are summarized.