Abstract des Autors

Among the antecedents of achievement goal endorsement in sports, competition is a consistent predictor of other-approach goal endorsement (trying to perform better than other players). However, most of this previous research was conducted in a context implying a strong focus on normative social comparison. We argue that in other competitive contexts, where both social comparison and temporal comparison are salient, competition can affect players’ self-approach goals (trying to perform better than one has done in the past) rather than other-approach goals. Two experiments were conducted with golf players. Results showed that when an intrapersonal standard was salient (e.g., “handicap competition"), golf competition increased self-approach but not other-approach goal endorsement. However, when interpersonal-standard is made salient (e.g., match-play competition), golf competition increased other-approach goal endorsement. Limits and future perspectives are discussed. Verf.-Referat