Adolescence and relationships: the role of sport.

This work starts in the context of studies about peer relationships and motivational indices in sport and exercise settings. Considering the combined influences of peer and parent relationships are important to fully understand the impact of relationships on motivation in youth sport (Jowett & Wylleman, 2005). In adolescence the redefinition of relationships becomes crucial and the peer group takes on special significance becoming a social laboratory in which to experiment on their own choices and behaviors (Bonino & Cattellino, 2000).The aim of this work was to investigate how sport facilitates adolescents to deal with tasks of own development and promote their well-being, particularly referring to the role of sport for building relationships in adolescence. To reach this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 adolescent athletes who came from Naples and its province, recruited through a theoretical sampling (Cicognani, 2003). Through the analysis of the interviews, carried out thanks to Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), the categories of meaning have been identified. Reading about this phenomenon emerges that relationships with non-athlete peers are characterized by unease and a feeling of exclusion, and adults reference hinder sport participation and affect athletes’ motivation. It suggests that sport promotes only relationships between athletes, and increases the ingroup bias that extends to a perception of the future in which relationships with the outgroup are absent (Tajfel, 1978). Finally studying this phenomenon has given some indications about aspects to be examined further in order to promote future effective interventions to prevent sport drop-out.