Creative Education 2014. Vol.5, No.2, 114-121 Published Online February 2014 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce ) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2014.52018 Verbal Aggressiveness and Leadership Style of Sports Instructors and Their Relationship with Athletes’ Intrisic Motivation Alexandra Bekiari Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, University of Thessaly, Trikala, Greece Email: sandrab@pe.uth.gr Received September 16 th , 2013; revised October 16 th , 2013; accepted October 26 th , 2013 Copyright © 2014 Alexandra Bekiari. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In accordance of the Creative Commons Attribution License all Copyrights © 2014 are reserved for SCIRP and the owner of the intellectual property Alexandra Bekiari. All Copyright © 2014 are guarded by law and by SCIRP as a guardian. The purpose of the study was to examine intrinsic motivation of athletes and its relation with instructors’ verbal aggressiveness and leadership style. The sample of the study consisted of 168 athletes (95 boys and 73 girls), 15 - 19 years old (M = 16.5, SD = 0.5), participating in different individual and team sports (basketball, volleyball, football, long jump, pole vault, 200 m). Every participant completed three ques- tionnaires, the Verbal Aggressiveness Questionnaire, the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, and the Leader- ship Scale for Sports. The results revealed differences existing among variables of the instruments in terms of sex and type of sport (individual or team sport and contact or non contact sport). Pearson correla- tion revealed a significant positive relationship of coaches’ verbal aggressiveness with anxiety, autocratic style, and a negative significant relationship concerning coaches’ verbal aggression with enjoyment, abil- ity, effort, and democratic style. Findings and implications for instructors’ type of communication were discussed and future research suggestions were included. Keywords: Athletes; Intrinsic Motivation; Coaches; Verbal Aggressiveness; Leadership Style Introduction Intrinsic Motivation The concept of motivation is generally referred to the way with which each person prompts himself to achieve his objec- tives. Related research in this field found that individual’s achievement targets are determined by whatever the individual considers important and desirable (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1989, 1992; Duda, 1992, 1993). A theoretical frame that is often used and more for the study of motivation in the field of physical education is the theory of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Intrinsic motivation appears to have the higher level of motivation which derives from self-determination. As intrinsic motivation is defined the participation in activities that people perceived interesting and pleasure (Vallerand, Deshaies, Cuerrier, Pelletier, & Mongeau, 1992). According to Vallerand and Rousseau (2001) there are three main types of intrinsic motivation: intrinsic motivation “to know”, intrinsic motivation “to accomplish”, and intrinsic motivation “to experience” stimulation. Ryan and Deci (2000) suggested that intrinsic motivation is important for self-deter- mined and autonomy behaviour. Moreover, it has been shown to relate positively with com- petence and satisfaction. A study conducted by Jowett and Ntoumanis, (2001) revealed the existence of a reciprocal rela- tionship and interaction between coaches and athletes. In sports field Mageau and Vallerand (2003) suggested that intrinsic motivation positively related with autonomy-supportive climate provided by coach. Also, Amorose and Horn (2000) suggested that a low in autocratic style and high in democratic style coach leads their athletes to a high level of intrinsic motivation. Fur- thermore, the coach who used mainly the democratic style and rarely the autocratic style, it is likely to advance an autonomy climate which, in turn, would have a positive impact on intrin- sic motivation. Results of another study (Hollembeak & Amo- rose, 2005) indicated the existence of a significant positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and athlete’s per- ceived competence, autonomy and relatedness. Also, aforemen- tioned researches found that all coaching behaviours (training and instruction, positive feedback, social support, and demo- cratic behaviour) positively associated with intrinsic motivation except of autocratic behaviour which related negatively. Fur- thermore, the above study indicated that individual sport ath- letes perceived that their coaches were more likely to use demo- cratic style and reported higher level of intrinsic motivation, autonomy and relatedness compare to team sport athletes. On the contrary team sports athletes perceived that their coaches tend to involve more in autocratic behaviour and training in- struction than individual sport athletes. A clear comprehension of motivation, however, requires that the target of behavior should be recognized. The objectives of individuals seem to determine the type of motivation they ex- perience, which in turn is related to certain behaviors. Frederick and Ryan (1995) support the notion that the participation in activities for a long period of time is more likely to happen when individuals are internally rather than externally motivated. OPEN ACCESS 114