A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Providing-Receiving SocialSupports in Sports Teams—Japanese and American Student’s Athletes

Abstract

Abstract:The purposes of this study were to examine the relationships between providing and receiving social supports with teammates, and to clarify the particularities of Japan, based on an examination of differences between Japan and the U.S. The subjects were 123 collegiate student's athletes from Japan and 115 from the United States. They participated organized sports activities in their universities (including intramural and varsity level). The participants completed questionnaires measuring the providing and receiving social supports for sports participation and persistency. Providing and Receiving Social Support Scale for Sports Team (Hagiwara and Isogai, 2014) were adopted to investigate the amount of social supports with teammates in a sports team. The results of correlations in providing and receiving social supports demonstrated that the amount of providing social support for teammates related to the amount of receiving social support from teammates in both Japanese and American student's athletes. The results of comparison Japan and the U.S. indicated that American student's athletes provided more social supports for teammates than Japanese. The present findings might be an important material to better understand Japanese student's athletes.