Julien E Bois
email: julien.bois@univ-pau.fr

Philippe G Sarrazin
email: philippe.sarrazin@ujf-grenoble.fr

Julien Southon

Julie C S Boiché

Running head: PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS Psychological Characteristics and their Relation to Performance in Professional Golfers

We thank Noëlle

Psychological Characteristics and their Relation to Performance in Professional Golfers

Golf is an activity that has consistently been studied by sports psychologists (e.g., [START_REF] Chamberlain | Competitive state anxiety and self-confidence: Intensity and direction as relative predictors of performance on a golf putting task[END_REF][START_REF] Cunningham | Debilitative and facilitative perceptions of trait anxiety among students in a college golf class[END_REF][START_REF] Davidson | Determinants of success among professional golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Gaudreau | Athletes' coping during a competition: Relationship of coping strategies with positive affect, negative affect, and performance-goal discrepancy[END_REF][START_REF] Hudson | Metamotivational state reversals during matchplay golf: An idiographic approach[END_REF]Nicholls, Holt, & Polman, 2005;[START_REF] Ramsey | Exploring a modified conceptualization of imagery direction and golf putting performance[END_REF]. This popularity might come from the specificity of this sport: players spend a very short time at hitting the ball whereas moving across the course and waiting represent the majority of the duration of a game. The golfer must therefore develop emotional management skills (i.e., emotional control) and "adjust" his/her level of physiological and psychological activation. An efficient use of this time, which is mainly based on psychological competencies, is probably critical for golf performance. Therefore, golf clearly represents an ideal activity to be studied by sport psychologists.

In order to investigate the determinants of golf performance, a lot of studies have been conducted. Technical aspects interested some. For example, [START_REF] Davidson | Determinants of success among professional golfers[END_REF] demonstrated the critical importance of acquired skills in golf performance. In a study of 119 professional golfers, they showed that driving and putting abilities as well as hitting green in regulation predicted 86 % of the variance of professional scoring average of the 1983 pro tour. Other researchers mainly focused on psychological factors related to golf performance.

The studies can be classified into three categories depending on the variables examined: emotional factors, coping or performance strategies, and integrative studies. In the first part of the investigative rationale, we therefore present the golf-related studies. In the second part, we present studies examining psychological profiles of elite athletes in other activities.

Psychological Factors Related to Golf Performance Among the three categories identified, the majority of the studies concerned the emotional aspects related to the performance, the most popular factor seeming to be state anxiety (e.g., [START_REF] Chamberlain | Competitive state anxiety and self-confidence: Intensity and direction as relative predictors of performance on a golf putting task[END_REF][START_REF] Cook | Relationship among competition state anxiety, ability, and golf performance[END_REF][START_REF] Cunningham | Debilitative and facilitative perceptions of trait anxiety among students in a college golf class[END_REF][START_REF] Hardy | Is self-confidence a bias factor in higherorder catastrophe models? An exploratory analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Hassmén | Precompetitive mood states and performance of elite male golfers: Do trait characteristics make a difference?[END_REF]Hassmén, Raglin, & Lundqvist, 2004;[START_REF] Jones | Intensity and direction dimensions of competitive state anxiety and relationships with performance[END_REF][START_REF] Krane | Performance and somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, and confidence changes prior to competition[END_REF][START_REF] Krane | Path analysis examining relationships among cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, state confidence, performance expectations, and golf performance[END_REF][START_REF] Mcauley | State anxiety: Antecedent or result of sport performance[END_REF][START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF]. Results concerning this line of research are rather inconsistent. In a majority of studies, the relationships among the subscales of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2; [START_REF] Martens | The development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)[END_REF]) -namely cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence -and golf performance were examined.

Cross-sectional and nomothetic research designs often revealed non-significant findings (e.g., [START_REF] Hassmén | Precompetitive mood states and performance of elite male golfers: Do trait characteristics make a difference?[END_REF][START_REF] Mcauley | State anxiety: Antecedent or result of sport performance[END_REF][START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF]. For example, [START_REF] Mcauley | State anxiety: Antecedent or result of sport performance[END_REF] used the CSAI-2 to examine the reciprocal effects between pre-competitive state anxiety and self-confidence on the one hand, and golf performance on the other hand, among collegiate golfers. The results showed that pre-competitive measures did not predict golf performance but that golf performance was a significant predictor of post-round cognitive state anxiety and self-confidence. Similar results were found with elite golfers [START_REF] Hassmén | Precompetitive mood states and performance of elite male golfers: Do trait characteristics make a difference?[END_REF][START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF]. In a study of eight male golfers of the Swedish National Team, [START_REF] Hassmén | Precompetitive mood states and performance of elite male golfers: Do trait characteristics make a difference?[END_REF] did not find a consistent relationship between precompetitive mood states and performance. [START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF] examined self-reported state anxiety measured by the CSAI-2 and physiological responses in 15 male professional golfers prior to, during and on completion of a tournament and practice round. If an increase in the anxiety variables and a lower self-confidence during competition compared to practice were observed, there was no significant correlation between psychophysiological variables and golf performance.

The results are a little bit more consistent in studies where experimental (e.g., [START_REF] Chamberlain | Competitive state anxiety and self-confidence: Intensity and direction as relative predictors of performance on a golf putting task[END_REF][START_REF] Hardy | Is self-confidence a bias factor in higherorder catastrophe models? An exploratory analysis[END_REF] and/or idiographic approaches (Hassmén et al., 2004) were used. For example, among a sample of eight male golfers of the Swedish National Team, Hassmén et al. (2004) showed that variability in somatic anxiety was significantly related to variability in golf performance. Using an experimental design and within-subjects comparisons with a sample of 12 experienced male golfers, [START_REF] Chamberlain | Competitive state anxiety and self-confidence: Intensity and direction as relative predictors of performance on a golf putting task[END_REF] brought partial support for the predictions of the Multidimensional Anxiety Hypotheses (MAH; [START_REF] Martens | The development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)[END_REF]. More precisely, a negative linear relationship, a curvilinear relationship and a positive linear relationship were found respectively between cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence on the one hand, and performance on the other hand. They also confirmed the impact of the directional aspect of competitive state anxiety -facilitative vs. debilitative -on performance.

Finally, testing the "catastrophe model" of anxiety and performance (see [START_REF] Hardy | A test of catastrophe models of anxiety and sports performance against multidimensional anxiety theory models using the method of dynamic differences[END_REF], few works (e.g., [START_REF] Hardy | Is self-confidence a bias factor in higherorder catastrophe models? An exploratory analysis[END_REF] proposed that cognitive anxiety, physiological arousal and self-confidence affect performance in an interactive fashion. In their study, [START_REF] Hardy | Is self-confidence a bias factor in higherorder catastrophe models? An exploratory analysis[END_REF] investigated eight male golfers participating in a golf tournament who reported their cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and self-confidence prior to their tee shot on each hole. The results showed a complex relationship between these three variables. In a low selfconfidence condition, cognitive anxiety was positively related to performance when somatic anxiety was low but negatively related to performance when somatic anxiety was high. By contrast, under condition of high self-confidence, cognitive anxiety was more positively related to performance when somatic anxiety was high than when it was low. The conclusion of such research is that cognitive anxiety is not as detrimental for performance as hypothesized in MAH. It could have a beneficial effect upon performance when competitors have low levels of physiological arousal and interpret their anxiety symptoms as being beneficial to performance.

Another line of research concerned the coping and performance strategies likely to moderate the effect of anxiety on performance and/or to reinforce self-confidence.

Certain studies have investigated imagery direction and its subsequent effects on golf putting performance [START_REF] Beilock | Don't miss!" The debilitating effects of suppressive imagery on golf putting performance[END_REF][START_REF] Ramsey | Exploring a modified conceptualization of imagery direction and golf putting performance[END_REF][START_REF] Short | The effect of imagery function and imagery direction on self-efficacy and performance on a golf-putting task[END_REF]Wegner, Ansfield, & Pillof, 1998). They generally demonstrated improved performance following positive imagery such as seeing the path of the ball until the hole [START_REF] Ramsey | Exploring a modified conceptualization of imagery direction and golf putting performance[END_REF][START_REF] Short | The effect of imagery function and imagery direction on self-efficacy and performance on a golf-putting task[END_REF], and impaired performance following negative imagery such as missing the putt [START_REF] Short | The effect of imagery function and imagery direction on self-efficacy and performance on a golf-putting task[END_REF] or through suppressive imagery, such as do not image hitting the ball "pass the target" [START_REF] Beilock | Don't miss!" The debilitating effects of suppressive imagery on golf putting performance[END_REF][START_REF] Wegner | The putt and the pendulum: Ironic effects of the mental control of action[END_REF] or do not image an obstacle (a bunker) to avoid [START_REF] Ramsey | Exploring a modified conceptualization of imagery direction and golf putting performance[END_REF]. In the same vein, one study [START_REF] Smith | The effect of imagery modality on golf putting performance[END_REF] examined the effect of various imagery modalities (i.e., self-modeling via video intervention, audio intervention, written-script intervention) on golf putting performance. It appeared that the video and audio groups performed significantly better than the written script and control groups.

Others studies were carried out especially to examine the role played by coping strategies (e.g., [START_REF] Gaudreau | Coping at three phases of a competition: Comparison between pre-competitive, competitive, and post-competitive utilization of the same strategy[END_REF]Nicholls, Holt, & Polman, 2005;[START_REF] Nicholls | Stress and coping among international adolescent golfers[END_REF]. Nicholls's studies were qualitative and implicated adolescent elite golfers. The existence of efficient (e.g., positive self-talk, breathing exercise, following a routine) and inefficient (e.g., negative thoughts, trying too hard, speeding up) coping strategies was emphasized. [START_REF] Gaudreau | Coping at three phases of a competition: Comparison between pre-competitive, competitive, and post-competitive utilization of the same strategy[END_REF] demonstrated that the coping strategies used differ throughout the pre-competitive, competitive and post-competitive phases of a golf competition. However, this piece of research does not concern the possible effect of coping strategies on golf performance.

Finally, integrative studies used one or two of the above factors in a context of a golf performance [START_REF] Beauchamp | Effects of cognitive-behavioral psychological skills training on the motivation, preparation, and putting performance of novice golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Beauchamp | Pre-competition imagery, selfefficacy and performance in collegiate golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Catley | Psychological antecedents of the frequency and intensity of flow in golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Cumming | Motivational orientations and imagery use: A goal profiling analysis[END_REF]Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004a, 2004b;[START_REF] Gaudreau | Athletes' coping during a competition: Relationship of coping strategies with positive affect, negative affect, and performance-goal discrepancy[END_REF][START_REF] Thill | Learning to play golf under different goal conditions: Their effects on irrelevant thoughts and on subsequent control strategies[END_REF]. Two studies can be distinguished because of their use of an experimental design [START_REF] Beauchamp | Effects of cognitive-behavioral psychological skills training on the motivation, preparation, and putting performance of novice golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Thill | Learning to play golf under different goal conditions: Their effects on irrelevant thoughts and on subsequent control strategies[END_REF]. [START_REF] Beauchamp | Effects of cognitive-behavioral psychological skills training on the motivation, preparation, and putting performance of novice golfers[END_REF] examined the effect of a 14-week golf-teaching program on the motivation, preparation, and putting performance of novice golfers. Three groups were compared: participants in the first group followed a cognitive behavioral program, those in the second group used a physical skill-training program and the third group was a control group. The results indicated that the cognitive-behavioral group presented higher levels of intrinsic motivation, a more consistent use of pre-putt routines and better putting performance as compared to the 2 other groups. [START_REF] Thill | Learning to play golf under different goal conditions: Their effects on irrelevant thoughts and on subsequent control strategies[END_REF] used a similar design with recreational golfers and found that a motivational context of one-on-one competition leads to anxiety and distraction, whereas a task-involving context excludes intrusive thoughts and is negatively related with self-handicapping. Using a correlational design with a sample of recreational golfers, [START_REF] Catley | Psychological antecedents of the frequency and intensity of flow in golfers[END_REF] studied the psychological antecedents of flow and found that pre-round measure readiness variables (calm, positive focus, confident readiness and pessimism) as well as golf skill level were significantly related to the frequency and intensity of flow.

The rest of this set of studies has focused mainly on the role and the importance of coping strategies in golf performance and emotional reactions [START_REF] Beauchamp | Pre-competition imagery, selfefficacy and performance in collegiate golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Gaudreau | Athletes' coping during a competition: Relationship of coping strategies with positive affect, negative affect, and performance-goal discrepancy[END_REF]Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004a, 2004b). Studies conducted by Gaudreau and his colleagues investigated the mediating role of coping strategies between (1) emotional reactions and performance [START_REF] Gaudreau | Athletes' coping during a competition: Relationship of coping strategies with positive affect, negative affect, and performance-goal discrepancy[END_REF] and (2) pessimism/optimism and emotional reactions (Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004b). These studies conducted with male amateur golfers confirm the great importance of coping strategies for emotional adjustment and performance in golf. For example, using a sample of regional male golfers, [START_REF] Gaudreau | Athletes' coping during a competition: Relationship of coping strategies with positive affect, negative affect, and performance-goal discrepancy[END_REF] investigated the mediating role of coping in the relationship between Performance Goal Discrepancy (PGD) and affect. Multivariate path analyses revealed that active coping and behavioral disengagement mediated the relationship between PGD and positive affect during competition, whereas only behavioral disengagement mediated the relation between PGD and negative affect, during the competition.

Psychological Profiles of Elite Athletes

As indicated above, only a few studies carried out in golf concerned "elite" participants and this statement is also true for other sports. Only a limited amount of articles report empirical data on psychological profiles of elite athletes. Most of them stress the importance of psychological skills (or performance strategies) used by high performers [START_REF] Vealey | Mental skills training in sport[END_REF]. Early research in this domain aimed at discriminating successful and less successful athletes in gymnastics [START_REF] Mahoney | Psychology of the elite athlete: An exploratory study[END_REF], racquetball [START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF] and wrestling [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF][START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF]. Overall, this set of studies revealed that the best athletes involved in these investigations (a) presented higher levels of self-confidence [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF][START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF], (b) were closer to achieving their maximum potential [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF][START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF], (c) focused less their attention on negative thoughts before competition [START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF] and (d) used more self-talk [START_REF] Mahoney | Psychology of the elite athlete: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF].

More recent qualitative and quantitative researches confirmed and supplemented the elites' athletes profile showing that Olympic/ World championship competitors were characterized among others by: imagery skills [START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF], pre-competition and competition game plans [START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF], strong self-beliefs [START_REF] Mallett | Elite athletes: Why does the 'fire' burn so brightly?[END_REF][START_REF] Marsh | Self-concept contributes to winning gold medals: Causal ordering of self-concept and elite swimming performance[END_REF], high personal drive, with high ego and high task orientation as well as high intrinsic and extrinsic motivation [START_REF] Mallett | Elite athletes: Why does the 'fire' burn so brightly?[END_REF], abilities to focus and to block distracters [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF][START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF], to set goals [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF][START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF] and to cope with and control anxiety [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF]. Results regarding anxiety are not congruent in that some studies reported lower levels for the best achievers [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF][START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF] whereas other found no differences [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF].

The Present Study

At this point several comments can be made: although the amount of studies concerning recreational or amateur golfers is significant, only few studies included a sample of professional golfers (e.g., [START_REF] Davidson | Determinants of success among professional golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Hassmén | Precompetitive mood states and performance of elite male golfers: Do trait characteristics make a difference?[END_REF]Hassmén et al., , 2004;;[START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF]. This is unfortunate because psychological training for peak performance interests high-level competitors. Hence research is needed on that population. Several sets of factors have been distinguished in the literature reviewed above: motivational factors, emotional factors and coping strategies. However, even the integrative studies fail to combine these three categories of factors to better understand psychological functioning and to predict golf performance.

Based on the literature reviewed above, this study has three purposes: (1) to provide descriptive data on a population poorly explored: professional golfers; (2) to study differences between players who competed for the whole tournament and players who were excluded after two days of competition; and (3) to investigate possible psychological predictors of golf performance. We conducted a study on 41 male professional golfers. Based on previous studies, several motivational variables (achievement goals, perceived competence), emotional reactions (pre-competitive state anxiety) and coping strategies (relaxation, imagery, emotional control, attentional control, negative thoughts and self-talk) were assessed the day before an important competition. The relationships of these variables with two performance indicators (cut success, final ranking) were subsequently examined.

The following specific hypotheses were made. With regard to the motivational factors, we expected that the best golfers would present higher mastery-approach and performanceapproach goal (e.g., [START_REF] Mallett | Elite athletes: Why does the 'fire' burn so brightly?[END_REF], higher perceived competence (e.g., [START_REF] Marsh | Self-concept contributes to winning gold medals: Causal ordering of self-concept and elite swimming performance[END_REF] and would present higher use of coping strategies, in particular attentional control, self-talk and imagery (e.g., [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF][START_REF] Mahoney | Psychology of the elite athlete: An exploratory study[END_REF]. Eventually we anticipated that the best golfers would display lower somatic and cognitive anxiety and higher self-confidence.

Method

Participants Forty-one male professional golfers (M age = 28.8, ± 5.75) volunteered for this study.

These players had been professionals for 3.68 years (± 3.42) and practiced 30.9 hours (± 14.1) a week.

Procedure

This study was part of a larger project in collaboration with the French Golf Federation. As the goal of the study was the examination of several psychological factors of golf performance and their consequences for professional golfers, we chose to focus on an important event: the Open of Bordeaux, which is the first stage of the French professional tour. This competition opened the season 2004 and lasted 4 days (i.e., 72 holes stroke play, 18 holes a day, cut after the second round). As it is the case for professional tournaments, the cut after two days of competition, which is a selection procedure, enabled the first 50 placed competitors to stay in the tournament, excluding the rest of them. In the present study we labeled "successful golfers" the players who made the cut and hence competed for the entire competition whereas the adjective "unsuccessful" was used for players eliminated after two days of competition.

All the golfers were informed prior to the competition that they would be presented with a questionnaire on their attitudes during competition. Players were contacted the day prior the competition to fill out the questionnaire. They were informed that the questionnaire was not anonymous so that the data concerning their subsequent performance could be collected and that this information would only be accessible to the researchers of the study and treated consistently within the ethical guidelines of the university of the second author.

Measures

Achievement goals. A French version of the Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport [START_REF] Conroy | A 2 x 2 Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport: Evidence for factorial invariance, temporal stability, and external validity[END_REF], the "Approach and Avoidance Questionnaire in Sport and Physical Education" (QAE-EPS; Schiano-Lomoriello, [START_REF] Schiano-Lomoriello | Development and validation of the Approach and Avoidance Questionaire for Sport and Physical Education setting (AAQSPE)[END_REF] was used to assess situational achievement goals. Grounded on the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework [START_REF] Elliot | A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework[END_REF], the scale consists of 12 items divided into 4 subscales: 3 items assessed mastery-approach goal (e.g., "It is important to me to perform as well as I possibly can"), mastery-avoidance goal (e.g., "I worry that I may not perform as well as I possibly can"), performance-approach goal (e.g., "It is important to me to do well compared to others"), performance-avoidance goal (e.g., "I just want to avoid performing worse than others"). Responses were indicated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from (1) "not at all like me" to (7) "completely like me". Construct validity and reliability of this scale were supported in previous research using French [START_REF] Schiano-Lomoriello | Development and validation of the Approach and Avoidance Questionaire for Sport and Physical Education setting (AAQSPE)[END_REF] or English [START_REF] Adie | Achievement goals, competition appraisals, and the psychological and emotional welfare of sport participants[END_REF][START_REF] Conroy | A 2 x 2 Achievement Goals Questionnaire for Sport: Evidence for factorial invariance, temporal stability, and external validity[END_REF] samples.

Perceived competence. To assess perceived golfing ability, a questionnaire similar to the one developed by Nicholls and colleagues [START_REF] Duda | Dimensions of achievement motivation in schoolwork and sport[END_REF][START_REF] Nicholls | Adolescents' theories of education[END_REF] was used. Due to the length of the questionnaire, only two items of the scale were used in this study. ("When you are golfing and you compare yourself to most of the other golfers, you consider yourself..."; "I feel that my level in golf is…"). Responses were indicated on an 8-point scale ranging from (1) "very bad" to (8) "very good". This scale has already been used with French samples and has demonstrated good construct validity, internal consistency and predictive validity [START_REF] Sarrazin | Exerted effort and performance in climbing among boys: The influence of achievement goals, perceived ability, and task difficulty[END_REF][START_REF] Trouilloud | The influence of teacher expectations on student achievement in physical education classes: Pygmalion revisited[END_REF]. The correlation between the two items was high (r = .68, p < .001), and the answers of the participants to these two items were averaged.

Performance strategies. The French version carried out by [START_REF] Debois | Contribution à la validation en langue française d'un outil de mesure des stratégies mentales : le "test des stratégies de performance[END_REF] of the Test of Performance Strategies [START_REF] Thomas | Test of performance strategies: Development and preliminary validation of a comprehensive measure of athletes' psychological skills[END_REF] was used. This 64-item questionnaire assesses 16 psychological skills and strategies used either in competition or during practice. In this study we retained only 6 dimensions of the competition setting 1 . This selection was made in line with previous studies, which also chose to focus on the most commonly cited psychological strategies [START_REF] Fletcher | The relationship between psychological skills usage and competitive anxiety responses[END_REF][START_REF] Harwood | Motivational profiles and psychological skills use within elite youth sport[END_REF]. Three items per variable were used to assess relaxation (e.g., "I am able to relax if I get too nervous at competition"), imagery (e.g., "I visualize successful past performances"), emotional control (e.g., "In competition my emotions prevent me from playing my best", inversed form), attentional control (e.g., "In competition, I am able to control my negative thoughts"), negative thoughts (e.g., "In competition, I have negative thoughts") and self-talk (e.g., "I talk positively to myself to get the most out of competition") strategies. Responses were indicated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from (1) "never" to (7) "always". This scale has been consistently used in the past and has demonstrated good psychometric properties [START_REF] Debois | Contribution à la validation en langue française d'un outil de mesure des stratégies mentales : le "test des stratégies de performance[END_REF][START_REF] Fletcher | The relationship between psychological skills usage and competitive anxiety responses[END_REF][START_REF] Harwood | Motivational profiles and psychological skills use within elite youth sport[END_REF]. [START_REF] Thomas | Test of performance strategies: Development and preliminary validation of a comprehensive measure of athletes' psychological skills[END_REF] reported Cronbach alpha coefficients ranging from .73 (attentional control) to .80 (self-talk) for the six dimensions used in the present study.

Emotional reactions. The French version [START_REF] Debois | Validation du CSAI-2 sous forme rétrospective: questions sur la méthode[END_REF] of the "Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2" (CSAI-2, [START_REF] Martens | The development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)[END_REF] was used. This 27item scale is a self-report instrument designed to measure cognitive (9 items) and somatic (9 items) states of anxiety, as well as self-confidence (9 items). In this study 10 items were selected to assess the three dimensions: 3 items for cognitive state anxiety (e.g., "I am concerned about performing poorly"), 4 items for somatic state anxiety (e.g., ''I feel tense in my stomach'') and 3 items for state self-confidence (e.g., "I am confident about performing well"). This scale has been used with French samples and has demonstrated good construct validity, internal consistency and predictive validity (e.g., Filaire, Alix, Ferrand, & Verger, in press; [START_REF] Filaire | Motivation, stress, anxiety, and cortisol responses in elite paragliders[END_REF].

Performance. The player's success/failure at the cut procedure served as the first performance indicator. His ranking at the end of the tournament was used as a second indication of his performance.

Data Analysis

Descriptive statistics were first performed. Analysis of variance was then used to investigate the differences between players who made the cut and players who did not. Since there is no necessary relationship between the results of univariate and multivariate tests of the same hypothesis [START_REF] Finn | A general model for multivariate analysis[END_REF] and since univariate F tests alone do not reflect the discriminating power that the variables may share, a discriminant analysis was also used as a means to see which variable(s) could discriminate the same two groups. Eventually, multiple regression analysis was used to predict players' ranking at the end of the tournament.

Result Descriptive Statistics

Means, standard deviations and Cronbach alphas of all the variables assessed in this study are presented in Table 1. Alpha coefficients were in general satisfying, ranging from .59 to .95. Only mastery-approach goal presented a Cronbach coefficient of .32 and was therefore excluded from subsequent analysis. The correlation matrix between the studied variables is displayed in Table 2.

Cut Effect

To investigate possible differences between players who passed the cut selection and players who were excluded after two days of competition, we carried out a MANOVA on the variables of the study, with the cut passed or not as the independent variable. The main effect was significant: Wilks λ = .45, F (13, 27) = 2.54, p < .05. Follow-up univariate analyses revealed significant differences (see Table 1) for performance-approach goal [F (1, 39) = 4.42, p = .04, η² = .10], cognitive anxiety [F (1, 39) = 5.57, p = .02, η² = .13], somatic anxiety [F (1, 39) = 6.90, p = .012, η² = .15], emotional control [F (1, 39) = 4.48, p = .04, η² = .10],

and attentional control [F (1, 39) = 5.26, p = .03, η² = .12]. According to [START_REF] Cohen | Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences[END_REF] guidelines for interpreting an eta square value (η²), .01 indicates a small effect, .09 indicates a medium effect and .25 indicates a large effect. Hence the effects reported in this analysis can be considered as medium.

Discriminant Analysis

In order to discriminate between players who made the cut and players who failed to, we used discriminant analysis (DA). Due to the high number of variables with regard to the number of subjects we used a similar procedure to the one used by [START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF]. First, an overall DA using all 13 variables was conducted to obtain each subject's discriminant score. These scores were then correlated with each subjects' raw scores on each of the 13 variables. The choice of the variables to enter into the subsequent DA was determined by rank-order magnitude of these correlations. To meet the recommended 5:1 subject to variable ratio [START_REF] Cooley | Multivariate data analysis[END_REF], only the top 8 variables were considered. This resulted in the introduction of the following variables: somatic and cognitive anxiety, attentional and emotional control, performance-approach goal, relaxation strategies, performance-avoidance goal and self-talk.

DA showed that the two groups could be distinguished significantly: Wilks λ = .55, χ² (8) = 21.15, p < .01. The discriminant function had an eigenvalue of .83 and a canonical correlation of .67. Overall, 80.5% of the total sample could be correctly classified, which is superior to a random assignment based on prior group membership probabilities (50%; [START_REF] Tabachnick | Using Multivariate Statistics[END_REF]. Since in DA, loadings > |0.30| are considered to be substantial, the discriminant function represents six variables that substantially contribute to differentiating the two groups. Players who made the cut are characterized by higher performance-approach goal, somatic and cognitive anxiety, relaxation strategies and emotional control strategies. They also tended to have lower performance-avoidance goal (see Table 3).

Predicting Performance

Regression analysis was used to test whether variables that discriminated players who made from players who failed the cut could predict their ranking. The six variables that were significant in the DA were regressed on performance. The regression was significant 2 : F (6, 34) = 8.28, p < .001, R² = .59 (see Table 4). Cognitive anxiety (β = -.57, p < .001) and emotional control strategies (β = -.44, p < .05) significantly predicted performance, relaxation strategies (β = -.28, p = .07) had a marginal significant effect. The higher the scores on those variables, the better was the performance.

Discussion

The goal of this study was to provide information on an under-explored population: professional golfers. Players completed a questionnaire the day before the beginning of an official competition of the French professional tour. Performance indicators (i.e., cut success/failure, ranking) were then collected at the end of the competition. These variables were subsequently used to see which types of psychological characteristics were related to performance. An examination of the cut result on the variables assessed was first conducted.

Discriminant function analysis was then used to examine which variables contributed the most to differentiate players who made the cut from those who failed to. Lastly, a regression analysis was used to predict players' ranking.

Investigating the cut effect revealed significant differences between players who competed for the whole tournament and players excluded after two days of competition. Most successful players presented higher scores on performance-approach goal, cognitive and somatic anxiety, emotional control and attentional control. The results of the discriminant function analysis revealed that six variables significantly discriminated successful from unsuccessful players. Successful players were characterized by higher scores on performanceapproach goal, cognitive and somatic anxiety, relaxation strategies and emotional control strategies and lower score on performance-avoidance goal. Lastly, regression analysis highlighted three predictors of performance among the six variables identified in the discriminant function analysis. The more athletes presented high levels of cognitive anxiety, frequent use of relaxation strategies and strategies of emotional control, the better their performance was. This regression accounted for 59% of the variance of players' ranking.

With regard to motivational characteristics, the finding that the best performing players have higher performance-approach goal is consistent with our hypothesis, as well as with the achievement goal literature which posits that high level athletes present high scores on the performance-approach goal (e.g., [START_REF] Mallett | Elite athletes: Why does the 'fire' burn so brightly?[END_REF][START_REF] Pensgaard | The relationship between motivational climate, perceived ability and sources of distress among elite athletes[END_REF]. Hence, trying to demonstrate his/her competence to others seems to constitute a powerful source of motivation for elite athletes. The results also show that the players excluded after two days of competition tended to have higher performance-avoidance goal.

An excessive focus on avoiding the demonstration of normative incompetence seems to be inimical for performance, a result conform to achievement goal literature (e.g., [START_REF] Elliot | A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework[END_REF]) and a past study [START_REF] Elliot | Achievement goals, selfhandicapping, and performance attainment: A mediational analysis[END_REF].

Conversely, the results concerning perceived competence are rather unexpected. This variable neither varied in relation to the cut success/failure nor discriminated those two groups. This is surprising because perceived competence is likely to affect the type of goal pursued by athletes, with high perceived competence related to performance-approach goal whereas low levels of perceived competence are more associated with avoidance performance goal [START_REF] Cury | Approche / évitement et théorie des buts d'accomplissement : Données empiriques et avancées conceptuelles [Approach / avoidance and achievement aoal aheory : Empirical data and conceptual advances[END_REF]. It might be that our sample was quite homogenous since all the participants were professionals, and the instrument used was not appropriated to this population. Specific tools for elite athletes such as the one used by [START_REF] Marsh | Self-concept contributes to winning gold medals: Causal ordering of self-concept and elite swimming performance[END_REF] should be used in future studies. Moreover, Mallet and Hanrahan ( 2004) also stressed the mediator role of perceived competence in the motivational process, in understanding the type of motivation that energizes elite athletes. In our study, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals significantly appeared although perceived competence did not.

Hence it might be that performance goals vary in this study depending on other processes or variables.

Our results regarding anxiety do not support our hypothesis and are inconsistent with the golf literature since those studies generally failed to find a link between pre-competitive anxiety and performance [START_REF] Hassmen | Intra-individual variability in state anxiety and self-confidence in elite golfers[END_REF][START_REF] Mcauley | State anxiety: Antecedent or result of sport performance[END_REF][START_REF] Mckay | Psychophysiological stress in elite golfers during practice and competition[END_REF]. They are also rather inconsistent with studies on elite athletes' characteristics that either found no specific differences regarding anxiety between successful and less successful athletes [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF] or indicated lower levels of anxiety for the best athletes [START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF]. In the present study, players who made the cut were cognitively and somatically more anxious before the beginning of the competition. This result contradicts the MAH that propose an increase in cognitive anxiety is always deleterious for performance (e.g., [START_REF] Martens | The development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2)[END_REF]. They nevertheless support findings by Jokela and Hanin (1999; Individual Zone of Optimal Functioning hypothesis), by [START_REF] Hardy | A test of catastrophe models of anxiety and sports performance against multidimensional anxiety theory models using the method of dynamic differences[END_REF][START_REF] Hardy | Is self-confidence a bias factor in higherorder catastrophe models? An exploratory analysis[END_REF] Catastrophe Theory) and by [START_REF] Hanton | The acquisition and development of cognitive skills and strategies: I. Making the butterflies fly in formation[END_REF], who found that increases in cognitive anxiety did not necessarily lead to impaired performance. They are also in agreement with qualitative studies showing that among elite swimmers higher levels of anxiety could be related to higher performance if they interpreted the intensity of their anxiety symptoms as facilitative (e.g., [START_REF] Hanton | The acquisition and development of cognitive skills and strategies: I. Making the butterflies fly in formation[END_REF]. One has to note that the mean scores of cognitive and somatic anxiety were not very high in our study, since the maximum value approximated 4 with a scale ranging from 1 to 7 (see Table 1). The intensity of the most performing players is therefore only "moderate". Perhaps very good golfers do not want to feel too relaxed prior to performance and want to feel moderately worried, and interpret these symptoms as facilitative. Future studies should consider this eventuality by assessing both intensity and direction of anxiety.

The results regarding self-confidence do not support our hypothesis and are not consistent with the existing literature (e.g., [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful big ten wrestlers[END_REF][START_REF] Highlen | Psychological characteristics of successful and nonsuccessful elite wrestlers: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF]. Nevertheless, the correlation (r = -.27, p = .09) between self-confidence and performance (i.e., players' ranking) is consistent with the literature although it does not reach significance. The size of our somewhat limited sample may explain why the correlation does not reach significance. Moreover, it might be that self-confidence does not discriminate successful and unsuccessful players because it is correlated with more proximal variables of performance (e.g., relaxation, emotional control, see Table 2) that are more powerful in this function.

Players who completed the cut selection also reported higher use of certain performance strategies. In particular, the best achievers in this competition used more relaxation strategies, attentional control and emotional control which is consistent with our hypothesis. This result is of great interest and seems to indicate that even elite golfers are discriminated by the use of those strategies that could reflect better competencies to manage emotions and anxiety. Consistent results were found by [START_REF] Hanton | The acquisition and development of cognitive skills and strategies: I. Making the butterflies fly in formation[END_REF] with elite swimmers. Using in-depth interviews these authors demonstrated that elite swimmers used relaxation strategies (either physical or mental) as well as other forms of mental skills (i.e., internal focusing, thought and feeling control) that could be related to emotional control and relaxation strategies. Although the terms are labeled differently, [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF] in their study of Olympic champions also reported an ability to cope and control anxiety. The notion of "handling with distractors" proposed by [START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF] also supports the competence of emotional and attentional control. In summary, although the terms are often different, previous studies on elite athletes support the findings of this study in relation to relaxation, attentional control and emotional control strategies.

Imagery, self-talk, and negative thoughts neither were found to discriminate successful and unsuccessful players nor predicted performance. For negative thoughts this may be due to the selection procedure in the discriminant analysis because its correlation with performance (see Table 2) is consistent with our prediction and indicates that less presence of negative thoughts is associated with better performance. This is in line with previous studies [START_REF] Gould | Psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions[END_REF]Nicholls et al., 2005, Nicholls, Holt, & Polman, 2005). For imagery strategies and self-talk, the results do not support previous findings (e.g., [START_REF] Mahoney | Psychology of the elite athlete: An exploratory study[END_REF][START_REF] Meyers | Psychological aspects of athletic competitors: A replication across sports[END_REF]. As proposed above, this might be due to shared variance with other strategies more correlated with performance: once the effects of these strategies are controlled, the influence of imagery and self-talk cannot explain more variance. However, the relatively high score of the players (respectively 5.14 and 5.25 for imagery and self-talk on a scale ranging from 1 to 7) indicate a rather frequent use of these strategies consistently with other studies on elite athletes (e.g., [START_REF] Orlick | Mental links to excellence[END_REF].

Due to the design of the study, some limitations have to be mentioned. The goal of the study was to focus on a population that is difficult to explore: professional golf players.

Although we managed to access this under-explored population, the sample size is somewhat limited, from a statistical point of view, and therefore the results must be interpreted cautiously. Secondly, we used a cross-sectional design that did not enable us to shed light on the consequences of goal performance. A field study using a longitudinal design should be used in the future. Another limitation concerns the absence of a variable in this study: mastery-approach goal. Although it was assessed, the low internal consistency observed resulted in its exclusion from subsequent analysis. This was unfortunate because some studies [START_REF] Mallett | Elite athletes: Why does the 'fire' burn so brightly?[END_REF] propose that elite athletes are motivated both by performanceapproach and mastery-approach goals, a result we were unable to replicate. Similarly, it was decided not to use all the dimensions assessed by the Test of Performance Strategies, to keep the length of the questionnaire reasonable. Hence, dimensions such as goal setting, automaticity or practice strategies were not assessed. Lastly, some dimensions presented low internal consistencies and therefore some results have to be interpreted cautiously.

In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that among professional golfers, the best achievers can be discriminated from lower achievers on the basis of their psychological characteristics. Our results indicate that most successful athletes were more cognitively and somatically anxious, used more frequently relaxation strategies, attentional control and emotional control and pursued more performance-approach goal and less performanceavoidance goal. It was also found that 59% of the variance of players' ranking could be explained by some of these psychological factors. It appears that anxiety could be beneficial for performance to the extent that players possess the competencies to manage the affects related to this anxiety. In terms of application, this result contributes to the identification of 1 the most efficient mental skills. 2 Footnotes 1. The attentional control dimension actually comes from the practice part of the TOPS. It was decided to include this variable since certain specificities of golf, and especially the length of the game, clearly demands a rigorous management of attention, in practice but also during competition. This is why this concept was added and adapted to the initial dimensions of the questionnaire coming from the competition context.

2. As suggested by [START_REF] Craft | The relationship between the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and sport performance: A meta-analysis[END_REF] we added somatic anxiety to our regression analysis as a quadratic term in order to test the non-linear hypothesis proposed by the multidimensional anxiety theory. The somatic anxiety quadratic term influence was not significant and did not modify the remaining results which were therefore presented without this variable. To test for the robustness of the results obtained in this analysis, we re-run the regression after dropping out the insignificant predictors. The regression was significant F (3, 37) =16.46, p < .001, R²= .57 as were the effects of the predictors: cognitive anxiety (β = -.60, p <.001), relaxation strategies (β = -.31, p <.05) and emotional control strategies (β = -.52, p <.001).

Table 1 :

 1 Means, Standard deviation and Cronbach Coefficient of the variables.

	Variables Perceived competence Mastery-approach goal Mastery-avoidance goal Performance-avoidance goal Performance-approach goal Cognitive anxiety Somatic anxiety Self-confidence Relaxation strategies Imagery strategies Emotional control Attentional control Negative thoughts Self-talk Age Performance	Mean (SD) Cut succeeded (N = 17) 5.38 (0.45) 5.35 (0.71) Cut failed (N = 24) 5.51 (0.66) 5.60 (0.93) 2.33 (1.74) 2.46 (1.43) 2.59 (1.51) 3.58 (1.99) 6.06 (1.43) 5.03 (1.62) 3.71 (1.03) 2.83 (1.25) 4.06 (1.64) 2.81 (1.39) 4.94 (0.77) 4.76 (0.81) 5.14 (1.01) 4.54 (1.00) 5.31 (1.13) 5.01 (0.89) 4.73 (1.14) 3.96 (1.14) 4.92 (1.17) 4.14 (1.00) 3.2 (1.14) 3.64 (1.46) 5.57 (0.95) 5.03 (1.34) 28.82 (3.70) 28.80 (6.93) 26.76 (17.74) 100.88 (28.34) 1-143 Range 1-8 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 1-7 21-50	α r = .68 .32 .91 .82 .88 .63 .95 .67 .60 .59 .74 .74 .76 .80 --

Table 3 :

 3 Standardized canonical coefficient of discriminant analysis between players who made and players who failed the cut.

	Performance-avoidance goal Performance-approach goal Cognitive anxiety Somatic anxiety Relaxation strategies Emotional control Attentional control Self-talk	Standardized canonical coefficient .29 -.36 -.81 -.33 -.43 -.41 -.12 .23
	Eigenvalue Note : Wilks λ = .55, χ² (8) = 21.15, p < .01. .83


Julie C S Boiché
email: julie.boiche@univ-reunion.fr

Philippe G Sarrazin
email: philippe.sarrazin@ujf-grenoble.fr

Proximal and distal factors associated with dropout out versus maintained participation in organized sport

Keywords: Psychology, public health, motivation, athletes

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate a large number of determinants of sport dropout among French adolescents, in order to reveal proximal and distal factors of dropout.

Methods: 261 current and 106 dropout athletes (M = 14.6) participated to the study. The data were collected by a questionnaire assessing demographic information, athletes' perceptions on their experience, their parents, teammates and coach.

Results: t-tests revealed that current and former athletes were distinct on numerous variables.

A discriminant function analysis showed three proximal predictors of sport dropout (perceived value of the activity, satisfaction, parents' investment). Subsequent regression analyses showed that perceived value was positively predicted by perceived competence, the value of the activity for teammates, coach's investment, and negatively by conflicts of interest and goal conflict with teammates; satisfaction was positively predicted by the coach's mastery climate, but negatively predicted by conflicts of interest and goal conflict with teammates and with the coach; parents investment was negatively predicted by the goal conflicts with them.

Conclusions: This study permitted to discriminate between proximal and more distal psychological antecedents of the dropout behaviour. It brings information relative to the possible targets of interventions aiming at preventing dropout from organized sport.

Introduction

Regular physical activity (PA) has been shown to lead to numerous physical and psychosocial outcomes, particularly among youth. For example, it is well established that PA has a positive impact on several biological functions and helps to prevent certain troubles like overweight or obesity [START_REF] Goran | Role of physical activity in the prevention of obesity in children[END_REF]. Moreover, regular PA has been positively linked to physical self-perceptions and social acceptance [START_REF] Brustad | Youth in sport: psychological considerations[END_REF]. Experts groups have recommended 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity for youth (e.g., [START_REF] Cavill | Health enhancing physical activity for young people: Statement of the United Kingdom expert consensus conference[END_REF]. This quantity can be reached by two sources: energy expenditure through daily activities and leisure activities like sport.

Unfortunately, in most Western countries, the lifestyle tends to be more and more sedentary, and adolescence is a period of high dropout from organized sports (e.g., [START_REF] Wankel | Canada. In: Worldwide trends in child and youth sport[END_REF]. France does not constitute an exception to this general observation.

Numerous sport organizations report important dropout rates between the ages of 12 and 15 years old. In the same vein, a national survey conducted among a representative sample suggested that French people tend to be less and less active with age, since the average time of physical activity decreases constantly during adolescence and at the beginning of adulthood [START_REF] Minister | La France sportive: premiers résultats de l'enquête "pratiques sportives 2000[END_REF].

Regarding the benefits of PA, understanding the reasons of such an evolution seems a challenging social issue. This preoccupation is particularly relevant during adolescence, because of the importance of early experience for future practice during adulthood. Indeed, several studies demonstrated a significant link between current and past level of physical activity [START_REF] Perkins | Childhood and adolescent sports participation as predictors of participation in sports and physical fitness activities during young adulthood[END_REF]. Previous research on sport involvement (see, [START_REF] Gould | Understanding attrition in children's sport[END_REF][START_REF] Kremer | Young people's involvement in sport[END_REF][START_REF] Sarrazin | Mais pourquoi ne se réinscrivent-ils plus ?[END_REF]; for reviews) or on correlates of PA (e.g., [START_REF] Sallis | A review of correlates of physical activity of children and adolescents[END_REF] revealed that numerous factors could account for the quantity and duration of physical practice, such as, (1) demographic or biological characteristics (e.g., sex, age, BMI), (2) psychological or cognitive attributes (e.g., motivation, perceived competence, intentions of participation), (3) social and cultural factors (e.g., social support) and/or (4) environmental contingencies (e.g., opportunities to exercise, equipment available). Sport participation, as well as PA, seem to depend on a wide range of variables that interact within a very complex causal web [START_REF] Titze | Prospective study of individual, social and environmental predictors of physical activity: women's leisure running[END_REF], and some authors argue that such behaviours are too complex to be encompassed by a single theory [START_REF] Sallis | A review of correlates of physical activity of children and adolescents[END_REF]. One major perspective in this area of research is now to clearly distinguish between all correlates of PA, the most proximal predictors (i.e., mediators), potential confounders, as well as the more distal antecedents of sport or PA behaviours. This distinction would give information on the elements that should constitute a priority for interventions. This work has already been considered regarding the PA context (e.g., [START_REF] Bauman | Toward a Better Understanding of the Influences on Physical Activity[END_REF]. However, no previous study aimed at addressing this issue in the context of organized sport to our knowledge.

The purpose of this study was precisely to examine simultaneously several potential determinants of sport dropout or persistence, in order to have a broad perspective on this phenomenon. Because those factors were sometimes found to be correlated, we aimed at evaluating their relative place within the process leading to sport dropout (i.e., proximal versus distal versus confounding factors). We also aimed at examining the role of different members of the social environment identified as important for young athletes, namely parents, teammates and coach. Indeed, previous research on sport dropout is characterised by a focus on the coach (e.g., [START_REF] Sarrazin | Motivation and dropout in female handballers: a 21-month prospective study[END_REF], or on parental influence (e.g., [START_REF] Fredricks | Family Socialization, Gender, and Sport Motivation and Involvement[END_REF]. The group of peers remains a relatively unexplored "actor" in this domain. It is however recognised as an increased source of influence for adolescents, and has been shown to participate to the quality of the sport experience [START_REF] Smith | Peer relationships in physical activity contexts: a road less traveled in youth sport and exercise psychology research[END_REF]. In order to reach those goals, a cross-sectional study was carried out to compare samples of current and former athletes. The theoretical frameworks we retained among contemporary frameworks were chosen based on their relevance with regard to behavioural involvement, and because they were previously applied to the athletic area. The key variables of those models were selected, so as to investigate simultaneously a broad range of demographical, biological, psychological and social characteristics. We took into account the fact that some constructs might be very close conceptually from one framework to another and in some cases we deliberately assessed them only once. The set of variables retained is listed at the end of this section.

First, some variables were drawn from the Sport Commitment Model (SCM; e.g., [START_REF] Carpenter | A test of the Sport Commitment Model using structural equation modeling[END_REF]. This model supposes that individuals' psychological commitment and thus their behavioural persistence is positively predicted by 3 elements: (1) their degree of satisfaction toward the activity (i.e., positive affective experience); (2) the absence of attractive alternative activities (e.g., other leisure activities);

(3) the forces that retain him/her in the activity, such as the resources already invested (time, money), or the social pressure to pursue it. The first two variables were significantly linked to persistence in sport; hence, a high degree of satisfaction, and a low level of conflict of interest with other activities, may prevent from sport dropout. On the other hand, the last prediction received less empirical support. Indeed, no significant bound appeared between personal investment and commitment [START_REF] Guillet | Predicting persistence or withdrawal in female handballers with Social Exchange theory[END_REF], and money, time, or distance are sometimes advances as barriers to exercise [START_REF] Bauman | Toward a Better Understanding of the Influences on Physical Activity[END_REF]. On the other hand, social constraints appeared as a positive (rather than negative) predictor of dropout [START_REF] Guillet | Predicting persistence or withdrawal in female handballers with Social Exchange theory[END_REF]. The tenets of this model would thus deserve to be tested again in the sport context.

Next, the central components of Eccles' Expectancy-Value Model (e.g., Eccles, Freedman, Frome, Jacobs, & Yoon, 2000) were considered. This paradigm focuses on the mechanisms underlying children and adolescents' choices and investment in various life domains. Basically, the model states that a young individual is likely to maintain his/her involvement in a domain as long as his/her expectations of success in the activity -or perceived competence -and the value he/she attaches to it, are high. Moreover, the model highlights the role of parents in gauging such perceptions. A recent review of the literature deriving from this model in the sport area confirms (a) the links between young individuals' perceptions and their behaviour, including the dropout behaviour (e.g., [START_REF] Guillet | Understanding female sport attrition in a stereotypical male sport within the framework of Eccles's expectancy-value model[END_REF] and (b) the significant role played by parents [START_REF] Bois | Les chiens font-ils des chats ? Une revue de littérature sur le rôle des parents dans la socialisation de leur enfant pour le sport[END_REF].

Third, we assessed the key concepts from Self-Determination Theory (SDT; [START_REF] Deci | The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination Theory[END_REF]. This comprehensive framework distinguishes different types of motivation that can be ordered along a continuum of self-determination, including intrinsic motivation, selfdetermined and controlled forms of extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. The more selfdetermined the motivation, the more positive the outcomes should be, especially behavioral persistence [START_REF] Vallerand | A hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in sport and exercise[END_REF]. Besides, SDT enhances the importance of three basic needsautonomy (i.e., feeling like the 'origin' and not the 'pawn' of one's actions), competence (i.e., feeling effective in one's ongoing interactions), and relatedness (i.e., feeling connected to others, to caring for and being cared for by those others) -that may be more or less sustained by the social environment. A review of the studies conducted in sport within this theoretical framework supports the role played by the motivations and psychological needs mentioned above to predict dropout [START_REF] Sarrazin | A Self-Determination Approach to Sport Dropout[END_REF].

Achievement Goal Theory (AGT; see [START_REF] Duda | Achievement Goal Research in Sport : Pushing the boundaries and Clarifying some misunderstandings[END_REF] for a review) was also mobilized for the purpose of the present study. This model proposes that the motivational climate provided may impact the goal pursued by individuals and hence their persistence. Indeed, AGT opposes a mastery or task-oriented climate (i.e., emphasizing learning processes and progress), that may favour self-referenced evaluations and persistence, to a more competitive or ego-oriented climate (i.e., were the result and social comparison are emphasized), that may damage the implication of certain individuals. Past research in the sport dropout literature suggests that the perception of a mastery climate from the coach is associated with persistence, whereas a competitive climate is associated with dropout [START_REF] Sarrazin | Motivation and dropout in female handballers: a 21-month prospective study[END_REF].

A different way of considering coaching was developed by [START_REF] Chelladurai | Leadership[END_REF] in his work on leadership, who sustains that athletes vary in their preferred coaching style, and that an important distortion between the preferred and perceived coaching could be at the origin of athletes' dissatisfaction. This proposition was sustained by empirical data [START_REF] Chelladurai | Preferred leadership in sports[END_REF], supporting the idea that the degree of coherence between the view of the athlete and the one of his/her social environment could impact the quality of sport experience. On the other hand, perceiving goal conflicts with one's social environment might lead to higher rates of sport dropout.

In the present study, we assessed the key constructs presented above, as well as certain atheoretical characteristics that were found to related to PA behaviours [START_REF] Sallis | A review of correlates of physical activity of children and adolescents[END_REF], that can be categorized into three groups of variables: (1) demographical or biological characteristics (e.g., time dedicated to the activity, BMI); (2) psychological perceptions within the sport context (motivation, value, psychological needs, satisfaction, perceived conflict with other activities); (3) perceptions of the social environment (value, investment, climate, goal conflict with the coach/ parents/peers).

Methods

Participants and Procedure

The sample comprised 261 adolescents (86 girls, 175 boys) practicing one of the most popular activities among teenagers in France, namely soccer, basketball, handball, rugby, skiing, judo, gymnastics, horse riding, cycling, climbing, tennis and table tennis, and 106 adolescents (53 girls, 53 boys) that had ceased their participation in those activities one year earlier. The mean age of the participants was 14.60 years old (SD = 4.19).

The data collection was done by questionnaire. The questionnaires were delivered and collected directly in clubs proposing such activities, for current athletes. They were mailed to dropout athletes (i.e., athletes who did not come back to their club) with a letter explaining the purpose of the study, and a stamped envelope for the return. Their addresses were communicated by clubs and local committees. The questionnaires were identical for current and former athletes, except for the tenses used. For example, one instruction for current athletes was: "In this part, we are interested in the way you perceive your coach when you practice your activity", whereas it was "In this part, we are interested in the way you perceived your coach when you were practising your activity", for dropout athletes.

Measures

The questionnaire was built based on validated tools from the concerned theoretical frameworks (e.g., SDT for motivation and needs). For certain subscales, minor changes were made, regarding the number of items and/or the answer scale used, in order to simplify the data collection process, and to lighten the questionnaire. All the subscales had a 6-point Likert type answer scale ranging from 1 ("do not agree at all") to 6 ("completely agree").

Demographic information.

The participants were asked to give their weight and high, as well as the time they spent weekly for their activity, the amount of money it cost a year, and the distance between their home and the place where the activity took place.

Athletes' perceptions of their sport experience.

First, the French version of the Sport Motivation Scale was used in order to assess the participants' motivations toward their activity [START_REF] Brière | Développement et validation d'une mesure de motivation intrinsèque, extrinsèque et d'amotivation en contexte sportif : L'Échelle de Motivation dans les Sports (EMS)[END_REF].

Grounded within SDT, this tool measures the reasons for being involved in sport, including intrinsic motivation (e.g., "Because it provides me pleasant sensations"), identified (e.g., "Because it is a good way to make friends"), introjected (e.g., "Because I would feel guilty if I did not take the time to do it"), and external regulation sub-scales (e.g. "Because some people put pressure on me so that I do it"). The score for each sub-scale -3 items each -was weighted, depending on its theoretical level of self-determination. The weighted scores were then added to calculate a self-determination index, according to the following formula: 2 × Intrinsic Motivation + Identified Regulation -Introjected Regulation -2 × External Regulation.

Next, the questionnaire evaluated the value athletes accorded to their activity, with a 3item version of the Value Scale of Fredericks and Eccles ( 2002) (e.g., "This activity is really important for me"). Two 2-item subscales of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory [START_REF] Mcauley | Psychometric properties of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory in a competitive sport setting: A confirmatory factor analysis[END_REF] were used to assess the athletes' perceptions of competence (e.g., "I think I am pretty good at this activity") and autonomy (e.g., "I feel responsible for my actions"). A 3-itemsub-scale adapted from the 'Echelle de Satisfaction de Vie' [START_REF] Blais | L'Échelle de satisfaction de vie : Validation canadienne-française du "Satisfaction with Life Scale[END_REF]) estimated the level of satisfaction toward the activity (e.g., "I am really happy about the way this activity goes"). Finally, the level of conflict of interest with alternative activities was assessed with a 6-item scale from the Passion Scale [START_REF] Vallerand | Passion in sport: Theory, research and applications[END_REF]: "Sometimes conflicts arise between my sport and other activities".

Athletes' perceptions about of their parents.

This part contained questions about the value parents placed in sport thanks to the 4-item Value Scale of Fredericks and Eccles (2002 (e.g., "For my parents, sport is more important than other leisure activities"). Based on previous work about parental influence in sport [START_REF] Lee | Sources of parental pressure among age group swimmers[END_REF], a 4-item scale evaluating parents' investment in their child's activity was included (e.g., "My parents regularly watch my trainings"). Finally, a 3-item scale was added -10 -in order to investigate the potential conflicts between the athletes' goals and their parents' priorities (e.g., "I sometimes feel that my parents tend to impose me their goals in this activity").

Athletes' perceptions of their teammates.

The same perceptions were assessed concerning teammates. In other words, it was asked to the athletes to evaluate the value that their teammates placed in the activity, the investment they put in it, as well as possible goal conflicts with them.

Athletes' perceptions of their coach.

The athletes' perception of their coach investment was assessed both regarding trainings and competition (e.g., "My coach is present at every competition") thanks to an abridged 4-item subscale from the Leadership Scale for Sports [START_REF] Chelladurai | Preferred leadership in sports[END_REF]. Based on the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire [START_REF] Walling | The Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire: Construct and predictive validity[END_REF], the mastery climate established by the coach (4 items; e.g., "My coach helps me to make progress on my weaknesses"), as well as the competitive climate (3 items; e.g., "My coach shows greater concern for the best athletes"), were estimated. The degree of goal conflict with the coach was also assessed thanks to a 4-item scale (e.g., "My coach absolutely wants good performances even though having fun is the most important for me"). Finally, the quality of the interpersonal relationship with the coach was evaluated (3 items; e.g., "I get along well with my coach") [START_REF] Baard | Intrinsic need satisfaction: A motivational basis of performance and well-being in two work settings[END_REF].

Data analysis

In order to distinguish between proximal predictors, confounder variables, and distal antecedents of dropout, a three-step strategy based on the classical procedure recommended for mediation tests with regression analyses [START_REF] Kenny | Data analysis in social psychology[END_REF]) was adopted.

First, t-tests were conducted to examine which variables differed among the two samples. This first series of univariate tests permitted us to point out which variables were related to our variable of interest, that is, the dropout behaviour. Next, a discriminant function analysis was carried out, entering the previously identified variables as predictors of group membership (i.e., dropout versus current participants). This analysis enabled us to distinguish between proximal (or mediators) and distal antecedents of dropout, the former being the significant variables of the discriminant function. Finally, multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to predict the significant variables identified by the discriminant analysis, with the remaining variables as independent variables. The variables which did not predict the mediators can be considered as confounders.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

The mean, standard-deviation, and Cronbach alpha coefficients, are presented in Table 1, as well as the mean scores for each group (current versus dropout athletes) and the p values of the t-tests.

T-tests

A series of t-tests was conducted on the assessed variables, entering the status (current versus former sport participant) as independent variable. No significant difference was found for Body Mass Index. Regarding the demographical variables, the analysis revealed significant differences for some characteristics of the sport experience. More particularly, current participants devoted more time for the activity, and they declared living further from the place where they practiced it. On the other hand, the financial cost was not found to be significantly different between the two groups. Concerning athletes' perceptions about their sport experience, the analyses showed that current participants reported higher scores for competence and autonomy, they put more value in the activity, and they were more satisfied.

On the other hand, they reported lower levels of conflicts with alternative activities. Selfdetermined motivation was not found to be significantly different between the two groups.

-12 -Concerning social perceptions, current participants reported a greater investment of their parents, and perceived less goal conflicts with them. There was no difference for the value the athletes thought their parents placed in their activity. Current athletes also reported greater scores for their teammates' investment, the value they put in the activity and lower scores for goal conflicts with them. Finally, current participants showed greater scores for their coach's investment, and the mastery climate he/she established, they reported a better interpersonal relationship with him/her, and less goal conflicts with him/her. There was no difference concerning the competitive dimension of the climate.

Discriminant Function Analysis

The goal of discriminant function analysis is to predict group membership from a set of predictors [START_REF] Tabachnick | Using multivariate statistics[END_REF]. The demographic information (i.e., time and distance) were not utilized, because the sense of the observed difference between participants does not suggest that those factors could account for the dropout behaviour. Indeed, former participants were found to spend less time and to live closer from the place where their activity takes place. The other variables for which a significant difference appeared were entered in the analysis as independent variables. It is usually recommended that the total sample size is at least three times the number of variables entered in the analysis. This condition was respected here, since the sample size was 327 and the number of independent variables 14.

Globally, the analysis was significant: Wilk's Lambda = .77, F (14, 327) = 6.91, p< .001. Three variables were found to significantly discriminate between current and former athletes, since they contributed to increase significantly the value of Wilk's Lambda (p<.05):

the value accorded to the activity, the athletes' level of satisfaction, and the investment they perceived from their parents. The model permitted to predict a participant's group with a correct percentage of 38.7% for dropout athletes and 94.4% for current athletes. activity, and the distance between home and the site where it took place, were greater for current participants, compared to dropout athletes. In other words, the amount of time devoted to the activity, or the distance from home to the site where it took place, were not causes for dropping out in this study. This result contrasts with past literature where "lack of time" emerged as one of the more important reasons invoked to justify dropout [START_REF] Salguero | Identification of dropout reasons in young competitive swimmers[END_REF][START_REF] Weiss | Motivational orientations in sport[END_REF]. In the same vein, this result contradicts the hypothesis of a geographic barrier to PA [START_REF] Brawley | Problems assessing perceived barriers to exercise: confusing obstacles with attributions and excuses[END_REF]. Conversely, the hypothesis of SCM relatively to personal investments as a factor of adherence is supported here.

The second step of analysis allowed us to locate the elements that discriminated the most the members of the two groups of participants. Two variables characterizing the sport experience, satisfaction and value, as well as one parental variable, investment, emerged from the discriminant function analysis. They can thus be considered as some of the most proximal factors of sport dropout in our study. This result is consistent with certain theoretical models applied to the sport setting. For example, the sport commitment model posits that the athlete's commitment toward his/her activity will derive directly from the amount of satisfaction he/she retires from it [START_REF] Carpenter | A test of the Sport Commitment Model using structural equation modeling[END_REF]. Satisfaction and commitment were found to be positive antecedents of sport persistence in previous research [START_REF] Guillet | Predicting persistence or withdrawal in female handballers with Social Exchange theory[END_REF]. Moreover, the expectancy-value model developed by Eccles and her collaborators emphasizes the value placed in an activity to predict subsequent behaviour among children and adolescents [START_REF] Eccles | Gender-role socialization in the family: A longitudinal approach[END_REF]. It also proposes that parents play a fundamental role in the socialization process, in particular through the opportunities they tend to provide to their child so that he/she can develop his/her experience in certain domains. Parental support, as well as the value accorded to sport, were related positively to children sport perceptions or participation in the past (Fredericks & Eccles, 2005;[START_REF] Eccles | Gender differences in sport involvement: Applying the Eccles' expectancy-value model[END_REF].

In conclusion, the results of our analyses suggest that athletes' level of satisfaction within the activity, and the value they put in it, as well as their parents' investment, should be considered in order to prevent dropout from organized sport. This study also highlights some of the variables likely to influence those perceptions, and that consequently constitute possible targets for interventions. Several positive factors appeared in our analyses. First, perceived competence was positively related to the value of the activity. Perceived competence was found to lead to maintained sport participation in the past, whereas a lack of competence was invoked to justify sport dropout [START_REF] Salguero | Identification of dropout reasons in young competitive swimmers[END_REF]. As it was outlined by some authors, any action that permits to promote the individual's sense of competence is likely to encourage him/her to persist in the activity [START_REF] Deci | The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination Theory[END_REF]. Logically, the value accorded to the activity was also facilitated by the perception that teammates themselves valued the activity. In line with the fact parents' investment was found as a proximal variable, coach's investment was found to be important as well, since it had a positive relationship with perceived value. Finally, the mastery climate was found to be related to the athletes' satisfaction, which confirms past research carried out in the sport context (see [START_REF] Duda | Achievement Goal Research in Sport : Pushing the boundaries and Clarifying some misunderstandings[END_REF].

On the other hand, certain perceptions seem to influence negatively the observed proximal antecedents of sport persistence. One consistent result is relative to the concept of goal conflict, which was found as a significant distal factor of dropout. Indeed, assessed in regard with parents, teammates and coach, this variable was negatively linked to at least one proximal factor. These results are rather innovative concerning teammates and parents, but they are consistent with previous research on coaching, for example [START_REF] Chelladurai | Leadership[END_REF]. The perception of the athlete that his/her priorities in the activity differ from the goals valued by the social environment is likely to undermine his/her sport experience. Finally, the perception of conflicts between sport and other activities was a significant predictor of value and satisfaction. This result is in line with sport commitment model (e.g., [START_REF] Carpenter | A test of the Sport Commitment Model using structural equation modeling[END_REF] and past descriptive work on sport dropout (e.g., Salguero et al., 2002) that emphasized the role of "conflicts of interest" in the teenagers' dropout phenomenon.

Limitations and Perspectives

This study conducted among current and former athletes permitted to discriminate between proximal and distal factors of sport dropout behaviour. Among all biological, demographic, psychological, and interpersonal variables considered, three elements appeared as proximal factors: the value accorded to the activity, the athlete's level of satisfaction, and the perceived parental investment. Some other psycho-social variables emerged as more distal factors, including perceived competence, conflicts of interest, and several variables relative to the environment, in particular goal conflicts. These results may be partly linked to the characteristics of other samples and need to be replicated in other samples to evaluate their external validity.

Furthermore, the fact that the discriminant analysis allowed to predict a lower percentage of participant's group for dropout athletes suggests that this kind of behaviour cannot be considered as a unified variable. On the contrary, several types of dropout can be distinguished (e.g., [START_REF] Gould | Understanding attrition in children's sport[END_REF][START_REF] Sarrazin | Mais pourquoi ne se réinscrivent-ils plus ?[END_REF]. Some athletes may voluntarily stop their sport participation because they are not satisfied by the activity, because they do not consider it as important anymore, because they became less motivated, or perceive too little progress. They should consequently show a psychological profile different from the one of persistent athletes, and we may assume that those dropout athletes have been correctly classified in the study. On the other hand, some athletes might feel satisfied and still value their activity, but have the obligation to cease their sport involvement, because of certain social contingencies (e.g., linked to school or interpersonal relationships), or because they can materially or physically no longer participate (e.g., severe injuries, moving, disappearance of

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Results of the multiple regression analyses

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Results of the multiple regression analyses

Table list Table 1 :

 list1 Descriptive Statistics and Results from t tests

	Figure legend
	* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001
	-25 -

Table 1 :

 1 Descriptive Statistics and Results from t tests

				M	M	p
	M	SD	α	Practice	Dropout

a team). In the case of such unintentional dropouts, the psycho-social profile should be close from the one of a persistent athlete, and this could explain why a considerable percentage of dropout athletes were incorrectly classified in the study. As a consequence, future research would benefit from a more subtle categorization of the different types of dropout, in particular in order to analyze separately freely assumed versus uncontrolled dropouts.Finally, research perspectives could concern interventions aimed at preventing dropout among adolescents, by taking into consideration those antecedents, in order to foster a positive sport experience. The social environment obviously plays an important role in this phenomenon, and one should consider involving parents in such a project to maximize the effects of the intervention.

Ackowledgements

This study was facilitated by a grant from two French sport organizations: the 'Direction Départementale de la Jeunesse et des Sport 26' and the 'Comité Départemental Olympique et Sportif de la Drôme'.

Ackowledgements

This study was facilitated by a grant from two French sport organizations: the 'Direction Départementale de la Jeunesse et des Sport 26' and the 'Comité Départemental Olympique et Sportif de la Drôme'.

Multiple Regressions

All the psychological variables that were found to be statistically different between current and former athletes and that were directly linked to their sport experience were entered in a multiple regression analysis as independent variables to predict the value accorded to the activity. The model was globally significant: F (10, 334) = 17.1, p<.001. All the results are presented on Figure 1. Value was positively predicted by perceived competence (β = .16), the value of the activity for teammates (β = .29), the coach's investment (β = .25), and negatively predicted by conflicts of interest (β = -.15) and the goal conflicts experienced with teammates (β = -.15). The same variables were used in order to predict the level of satisfaction with the activity. Globally, the model was significant: F (10, 334) = 23.6, p<.001. Satisfaction was positively predicted by the coach's mastery climate (β = .25) but negatively predicted by conflicts of interest (β = -.20) and the goal conflicts experienced with teammates (β = -.11) and with the coach (β = -.13). A third analysis was carried out to predict perceived parents' investment in the activity. Goal conflict with the parents was entered as independent variable. Globally, the model was significant: F (1, 363) = 144.1, p<.001. Goal conflict predicted negatively parents' investment (β = -.53).

Discussion

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we intended to investigate various demographic, psychological, and interpersonal variables in order to distinguish between proximal and distal factors of dropout behaviour. The choice of the variables was made based on previous research on sport dropout and several relevant theoretical frameworks on this topic. Next, we were interested in evaluating simultaneously the role of several social agents in this phenomenon.

The first step of analysis underlined variables that could account for dropout and to not further consider those that could not (see Table 1). Interestingly, the time spent for the