The Research On Athletes’ Attachment,Relationship Maintenance And Coach-Athlete Relationship Quality

Based on the Jowett and Poczwardowski’s integrated research model of coach-athlete relationships that was released in 2007, the previous researches about coach-athlete relationship have mainly studied the antecedents and consequences. However, there is barely no research that study the Attachment style’s effect on the relationship between coach and athlete, and how to maintain a positive relationship between the two. Thus, this research, according to Attachment theory, has analyzed the coach-athlete Attachment style of Chinese competitive sports, coach-athlete-relationship, relationship-maintaining strategy, and debated how Attachment style affect the relationship between coach and athlete and the satisfaction mechanism.This research has completed four missions:(1)Cross-culture tested and revised the Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale.(2)Made coach-athlete relationship-maintaining strategy scale.(3)Investigated coach-athlete’ Attachment style, coach-athlete’ relationship, relationship-maintaining strategy and the relationship between athletes’ social-cultural context.(4)Studied how attachment affect relationship-satisfaction-level and relationship-maintaining strategy intervening mechanism, built athlete’s attachment and relationship-satisfaction-level’s path-analysis model.715 professional athletes and 415 coaches in China as the research object, using analysis of variance, regression analysis and structural equation model to analyze athlete attachment(type and dimension), maintenance strategy, relationship quality and general demographic data by the coach- athletes attachment scale(CASS), relationship questionnaire(RQ), the relationship strategy scale(CARM), Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire(CART-Q), relationship satisfaction scale, and general situation questionnaire. Conclusion:(1)Exploratory factor analysis revealed three distinct factors: avoidance, anxiety, security; The revised Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale(CAAS) have good reliability and validity, which can be used to measure Chinese coaches’ and athletes’ attachment styles.(2) Coach-athlete relationship strategy scale model is a six dimension structure model, including communication strategy, motivation, support, conflict management, social networks, and assure. The coach-athlete relationship maintenance strategies of internal consistency reliability and the split-half reliability, content validity, construct validity, criterion-related validity indicators of good, are up to the requirements, which can be used as suitable tools for coaches and athletes.(3) Distribution of athletes’ attachment have four type, which account for 50.8% by secure attachment, 18.7% dismissed,11% fearful, 19.4% preoccupied. Sport level and time-spending between coach and athlete have an impact on coach’s attachment style.(4) Female athletes have a better performance on intimacy-perceiving than male athletes. Athletes who spent 3 to 5 years with their coaches sense the biggest volume of intimacy. Athletes who spent mare then 5 years with their coaches get the highest score in commitment and complementarity. The combination of female athlete and female coach scored more than the combination of male athlete and male coach in intimacy.(5) There is a significant difference between Male athletes’ relationship-maintaining strategy and female athletes’ relationship-maintaining strategy. Athletes tend to use motivation-inspiring rather than support or social media in maintaining the relationship with their coaches. Male athletes are more likely to apply social media, support and promise in relationship-maintaining. But female athletes would like use conflict-management and communication strategy.(6) Secure attachment has a significant positive relevance with relationship-maintaining strategy.avoidance and anxiety attachment has a significant negative relevance with relationship-maintaining strategy. The differences between different attachment style and their relationship-maintaining strategy are significant. Secure and preoccupied utilize more relationship-maintaining strategies. dismissed rarely use support, promise social media and communication-strategy. Fear are less likely to use conflict-management and communication-strategy. The main difference between obsession and cold is support, promise, social media and communication-strategy. The main significant difference between obsession and fear is promise and motivation-inspiring.(7)The athlete’s attachment and Relational-Maintenance strategy has influenced the interpretation of coach-athlete-relationship. The most effective variable that can explain the intimacy of coach-athlete-relationship are gender, attachment(anxiety and secure), and relationship-maintaining-strategy(motivation-inspiring, communication-strategy). The most effective variable that can explain the commitment of coach-athlete-relationship are gender, attachment(secure), and Relational-Maintenance strategy(promise, motivation-inspiring). The most effective variable that can explain the complementarity of coach-athlete-relationship are gender, attachment(secure), and Relational-Maintenance strategy(conflict-management, motivation-inspiring, communication-strategy).(8)The athlete’s Relational-Maintenance strategy has played an intermediary role between athlete’s attachment and relationship-satisfaction level. In detail, The athlete’s relationship-maintaining strategy has partly played an intermediary role between athlete’s secure attachment and relationship-satisfaction level, has completely played an intermediary role between athlete’s insecure attachment and relationship-satisfaction level, has partly played an intermediary role between athlete’s anxiety attachment and relationship-satisfaction level. The most powerful variables that affect the relationship-satisfaction level include motivation-inspiring, support, social media and communication-strategy.