Grit and basketball players’ mental well-being: the mediating roles of athlete burnout and sport skill learning engagement

Introduction Accumulating evidence suggests that personal psychological resources play an important role in promoting mental well-being in demanding sport contexts. However, less is known about the indirect associations between grit and athletes’ mental well-being. Guided by the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, this cross-sectional study examined the associations between grit and mental well-being among basketball players. Methods Data were collected from 1,213 basketball players (M age = 19.74, SD = 1.94; 28.6% female), with athlete burnout and sport skill learning engagement included as parallel mediators. Results The two dimensions of grit, consistency of interest and perseverance of effort, were examined separately. Perseverance of effort was positively associated with mental well-being, whereas consistency of interest was not significantly associated with it. In parallel mediation analyses, perseverance of effort was associated with lower athlete burnout and greater sport skill learning engagement; both variables were, in turn, associated with mental well-being. The indirect associations through athlete burnout (effect = 0.025, 95% CI [0.013, 0.043]) and sport skill learning engagement (effect = 0.114, 95% CI [0.078, 0.154]) were statistically significant. Discussion These findings describe associations consistent with selected aspects of the Job Demands-Resources framework and highlight the relevance of considering both health-impairment and motivational perspectives when examining basketball players’ mental well-being.