Sport motivation is associated with lower aggression via emotional intelligence and self-control: a serial mediation study in undergraduates

In this undergraduate sample, sport motivation was associated with lower aggression partly via a hypothesized serial indirect association through emotional intelligence and self-control (EI → SC), even after adjusting for sex and age and across alternative operationalizations of sport motivation. Given the cross-sectional self-report design, the findings should be interpreted as associational; longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to test temporal ordering and causal mechanisms.