Abstract:The aim of the paper is to widen knowledge about motivation of elite, recreational athletes and nonathletes. Participants from the elite athletes group (n = 35, 16.7 ± .70 years old) were football players of the Slovak national team. Recreational athletes (n = 31, 16.8 ± .80 years old) and non-athletes (n = 29, 15.7 ± .60 years old) are visiting Grammar School in Zvolen. D-M-V standardized questionnaire was used to determine performance motivation. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov's test disconfirmed the null hypothesis on the normality of data. We used the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests to determine the statistical significance of the differences. The results showed that there were significant (p .0.01) differences with large effect size (η 2 ≥ .14) in all the three (the performance motives scale, the anxiety inhibiting performance scale and the anxiety supporting performance scale) dimensions among the research groups. The motivation of elite athletes is significantly higher (p = .048; r = .25) compared to the recreational athletes. Also, compared to the non-athletes, the level of performance motivation is significantly higher (p = .002; r = .51) in the elite athletes.Based on the results of the study we can formulate the statement that the level of performance motivation is contingent on the level of sport activity.

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Aggression in sport is in general defined by Kerr (1999) as an intentional hurting of the opponent, which exceeds the limits set by the rules of a specific type of sport. Slepička, Hošek, and Hátlová (2009) differentiate the groups of specific sports from the point of view of aggressive behavior appearance: sports where aggression is an essential part of sports performance (combat sports), sports where aggression is not part of sports performance, but it may appear (e.g., football, basketball), sports in which is not expected an increased level of aggression, but may appear rarely (e.g., cycling, athletics), sports, that do not allow direct physical contact (e.g., swimming, tennis, volleyball) and aesthetic-coordinating sports (e.g., figure skating, synchronized swimming, gymnastics). Scientific studies focused on aggression in sports divide it into instrumental and hostile type.

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