Intersectionality Matters: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Sport Level Differentiate Perceived Coach-Created Motivational Climates and Psychological Needs

This study examined the intersection of athletes' gender, race/ethnicity, and sport level related to their perceptions of coach-created climates and psychological needs in sports. Participants, including 406 high school athletes (M-age = 15.47; 42.3% female) and 440 collegiate athletes (M-age = 19.73; 53.9% female) in the United States, completed validated measures of coach-created motivational climates and psychological need satisfaction/frustration. To examine intersectionality, we conducted 2 (male, female) x 3 (Black, Hispanic/Latinx, White) x 2 (high school, college) multivariate analyses of variance and follow-up descriptive discriminant analyses on (a) coach-created climates (task involving, autonomy supportive, relatedness supportive, ego involving, and controlling) and (b) psychological needs (satisfaction/frustration of autonomy, competence, and relatedness). Three significant interactions emerged: (a) gender by race on coach-created climates, primarily ego involving (r(s) = -.60) and controlling (r(s) = .-92); (b) gender by sport level on coach-created climates, primarily task involving (r(s) = -.50), ego involving (r(s) = -.46), and controlling (r(s) = -.42); and (c) gender by race on psychological needs, primarily competence satisfaction (r(s) = .56), autonomy frustration (r(s) = -.36), competence frustration (r(s) = -.60), and relatedness frustration (r(s) = -.68). The most consistent results were more perceived disempowering coach-created climates and psychological need frustration in Black male athletes than other gender by race subgroups, but the most positive perceptions in Black female athletes. Additional exploratory analyses indicated that significantly different correlations between coach-created climates and psychological needs were primarily stronger relationships for high school female than high school male athletes. In practice, coaches should consider athletes' intersecting identities and mitigate their gendered and racialized experiences.