ABSTRACT
A considerable amount of sport, exercise and physical activity behavior occurs within group settings. Every day, an untold number of individuals participate in team sports, exercise classes and school physical education (PE) lessons. In our endeavors to understand why disparities exist between individuals’ behavior, reported investment and personal experiences of such social settings, the concept of motivation provides valuable insight. Indeed, motivation has been repeatedly advanced as a key factor when attempting to predict outcomes such as sporting success, exercise persistence and athlete/exerciser well-being (see Vallerand, 2007 for a review). Further, since past work has shown individuals to have a need to relate, connect and belong (cf. Baumeister and Leary, 1995; Deci and Ryan, 2000), comprehending motivation in group settings is crucial to our understanding of how others influence our, and we their, experiences and behaviors in group/team physical activity settings.
