Perceived Autonomy Support from Father and Cognitive Flexibility among Student Athletes: The Mediating Role of Grit

The current study examined the relationship between perceived autonomy support from father and cognitive flexibility through mediation of grit. In accordance with self-determination theory, the current research concerns the issue of whether perceived autonomy support from father might impact cognitive flexibility directly and indirectly through grit. The correlational research design was employed for collecting the data from 250 student athletes (138 males and 112 females aged 18-24 years) through purposive sampling. For measuring the variables in the research, three questionnaires were applied: Perceptions of Parents Scale (POPS; College Student Version), Grit Scale and Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI). It has been found that there is a significant positive correlation among all the study variables, the perceived autonomy support from father and grit (r = .57), the perceived autonomy support from father and cognitive flexibility (r = .79), grit and cognitive flexibility (r = .55). On the basis of the results of mediation analysis, grit partially mediated the relationship between the perceived autonomy support from father and cognitive flexibility with the significant indirect effect (B = .10, SE = .03, 95% CI [.04, .16]) and the significant direct effect as well (β = .80, p < .001). The obtained model explains 32% of the variance in grit and 64.7% of the variance in cognitive flexibility. No gender differences in the perceived autonomy support from father were revealed but there were gender differences with regard to grit and cognitive flexibility. Therefore, the overall finding indicates the connection between perceived autonomy support from father and cognitive flexibility in student-athletes and determines that this relation is mediated by grit.