| Abstract |
College student athletes are at risk for mental health difficulties. Athletic identity – the degree of strength and exclusivity to which a person identifies with the athletic role – is associated with health risk behaviors and mental health concerns broadly among student athletes. Given a variety of barriers to college athletes disclosing mental health difficulties, measuring athletic identity may be an indirect way to screen athletes for being at-risk for mental health concerns. The current study examined the factor structure of an increasingly popular measure of athletic identity (the AIMS-Plus) across two samples of self-identified athletes (Nstudy1 = 201; 60.2% male; 61.19% White; 21.39% Hispanic; NStudy2 = 175; 45.29% male; 70.86% White; 20.57% Hispanic) to offer a peer-reviewed validation of the measure. Results suggest that the factor structure of the AIMS-Plus was not supported; however, both a modified version of the AIMS-Plus (the AIMS-Plus-R) and the 7-item AIMS may be acceptable. Continued work refining measures of athletic identity is needed. |
| Authors |
Madeline Palermo  , K. P. DeYoung  , Diana Rancourt
|
| Journal Info |
Taylor & Francis | Identity , vol: 23
, iss: 3
, pages: 258 - 265
|
| Publication Date |
6/12/2023 |
| ISSN |
1528-3488 |
Type |
article |
| Open Access |
closed
|
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2023.2219697 |
| Keywords |
Identity (Score: 0.541576) , Athlete Development (Score: 0.529469) , Sport Psychology (Score: 0.51716) , Social Identity (Score: 0.512344)
|
