We included all articles on the topic of peer motivational climate in youth sports, physical activity, and PE context for typically developing youth. We also included gray literature that was not officially published in academic journals, such as student theses and dissertations, as they involved the collection of original data from participants. Only articles that were published or accessible online since 2005 were included, as the first concept paper on “peer motivational climate” was published that year. Since the World Health Organization (n.d.) defines the age range of “adolescents” as individuals from 10 to 19 years and “youth” as those from 15 to 24 years, studies that included participants within these age range (10-24 years) were accepted although they also included participants out of the age criteria. However, studies that had large gap in the age range were excluded (i.e., 16-39 years and 16-54 years). Papers not written in English and those without original data (e.g., reviews, books, or research protocols) were excluded.

We chose three main databases: PubMed, PsycInfo, and Eric since they are closely related to the field of sport and exercise psychology, and they can broadly provide articles related to youth sport and physical activity. The search process consisted of three steps: First, the first author retrieved studies from three databases using the keywords (peer motivational climate) AND (sports) OR (physical activity) to capture any type of physical activity (e.g., PE or after-school physical activity) while removing duplicates. Second, we conducted a reference search by reviewing all relevant literature cited in the selected articles. Third, an additional hand search was performed using the search engine “Google Scholar,” resulting in identifying 16 additional studies. The PRISMA flow diagram of the study selection process is shown in Figure 1.

Three authors screened titles and abstracts for relevance according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and resolved discrepancies through discussion. Studies most aligned with the research questions were selected after a full-text review. This entire screening process was conducted using the online platform “Covidence” (Available online at https://www.covidence.org/w). The initial search began in June 2023 to identify articles from the selected databases and was updated through October 2024 with additional searches using search engine and reference lists.

Data was charted using an excel sheet with no specific template. Based on the review objectives, the first author mainly extracted all constructs examined in relation to peer motivational climate and grouped them accordingly. Another author independently reviewed and verified the constructs in each category, and discussed with the first author if there was any disagreement regarding data coding procedure and selection. The overall findings were summarized in one table (Supplementary Table 2) and two figures. Supplementary Table 2 presents various information from each paper, including demographics (authors, country of study, sample size, age, context, and sports level of participants), and study characteristics (purpose of study, study design, outcome measures, theories (in addition to AGT), measurement of peer motivational climate, results, and future recommendation).

The most commonly used design was cross-sectional (N = 30, 55.55%), followed by longitudinal (N = 11, 20.37%), qualitative (N = 6, 11.11%), experimental (N = 4, 7.4%), and mixed method (N = 3, 5.55%). The leading countries of research were the United States (N = 12, 22.22%), the United Kingdom (N = 12, 22.22%; 5 in England, and 1 in Wales), Canada (N = 6, 11.11%), Estonia (N = 4, 7.4%), Spain (N = 3, 5.55%), Sweden (N = 3, 5.55%), Belgium, Turkey, Hong Kong, South Korea, France, and Portugal (N = 1 each, 1.85% each)(for full information on study characteristics see Supplementary Table 2). The number of participants ranged from 12 to 2,219, with a median of 244 participants. Adolescents were the focus in 42 studies (77.77%) while adults and children were less frequently studied. Peer motivational climate was examined in competitive sports (N = 27, 50%), non-competitive sports and exercise (N = 21, 38.88%), and less frequently in PE (N = 6, 11.11%). Regarding sports, 24 (44.44%) studies included both individual and team sports, 19 (35.18%) studies included team sports and 2 (3.7%) studies included individual sports.

For the measurement of peer motivational climate, 45 (83.33%) of the quantitative studies used the Peer Motivational Climate in Youth Sport Questionnaire (PeerMCYSQ, Ntoumanis and Vazou, 2005). The PeerMCYSQ was developed based on qualitative investigations with youth sport participants conducted by Vazou et al. (2005), and comprises five factors (Improvement, Relatedness support, Effort, Intra-team competition and Intra-team conflict), measured with 21 items. The scale begins with the stem question, “on this team, most athletes”. Improvement refers to encouraging and providing feedback to teammates to support skill development (e.g., “help each other improve”). Relatedness Support refers to fostering feelings of belonging and being part of a group, as well as the creating a friendly team atmosphere (e.g., “make their teammates feel accepted”). Effort refers to emphasizing the importance of exerting effort and trying one's hardest (e.g., “are pleased when their teammates try hard”). Intra-team Competition reflects striving to outperform teammates and engaging in social comparison (e.g., “encourage each other to outplay their teammates”). Intra-team Conflict refers to negative and unsupportive behaviors displayed by teammates (e.g., “make negative comments that put their teammates down”). The PeerMCYSQ is rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7(“strongly agree”). One study developed a shortened version of the PeerMCYSQ (Alcaraz et al., 2013).

Only two studies used alternative questionnaires: The Significant Others' Goal-Involving Roles in Sport Questionnaire (SOGIRSQ, Le Bars et al., 2006) and the Learning and Performance Orientation in Physical Education Classes (LPOPECQ, Papaioannou, 1994). Specifically, The SOGIRSQ was developed to assess athletes' perceptions of task and ego-involving climates created by significant others. It was developed by extracting relevant items from existing questionnaires (i.e., Parent-Initiated Motivational Climate Questionnaire, PIMCQ, White et al., 1992; Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire, PMCSQ-2, Newton et al., 2000), supplemented by qualitative investigations with athletes. The SOGIRSQ consists of six factors measured with 19 items. The three task-involving factors are Promotion of Leaning by the Coach (e.g., “the coach is satisfied when everybody improves”), Promotion of Leaning by Parents (e.g., “my parents follow closely my technical and tactical improvement”), and Pursuit of Leaning by Athletes (e.g., “athletes are very satisfied when they have spent a lot of effort on technical or tactical work”). The three ego-involving factors are Promotion of Comparison by the Coach (e.g., “the coach only looks after those who obtain good results in competition”), Promotion of Comparison by Parents (e.g., “my parents attach great importance to how I place in competition”), and Pursuit of Comparison by Athletes (e.g., athletes are very satisfied when they do better than their training partners”). Responses are recorded on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”).

The LPOPECQ (Papaioannou, 1994) was created to assess learning- and performance-oriented climates in physical education classes. The questionnaire was developed through expert evaluation of relevant items from existing questionnaires. It includes four dimensions comprising 22 items: Learning-oriented climates created by peers (five items, e.g., “my colleagues are very satisfied when I learn something new”), Performance-oriented climates created by peers (five items, e.g., “my colleagues try to gain rewards by outperforming me”), Learning-oriented climates created by PE teacher (six items, e.g., “the teacher looks most satisfied when every student learns something new”), and Performance-oriented climates created by PE teacher (six items, e.g., “the teacher looks completely satisfied with those students who manage to win with little effort”). Following the stem question “During physical education…,” items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = “totally disagree” to 5 = “totally agree”). Finally, one study developed the Individual Sport Motivational Climate questionnaire (ISMC), which assesses peer-, parent-, and coach-created climates, as well as sport reward structure (i.e., perception of the structure of the sport as a whole) in individual sport contexts (Smith, 2010).

Figure 2 presents the number of studies that explored constructs in seven categories and interplays with social agents. The seven categories were identified related to (1) self-determination theory constructs, (2) morality, (3) cohesion, (4) dispositional achievement goal, (5) positive youth development, (6) affect, motivation, and behavior, and (7) well (ill)-being. The social agents investigated in the peer motivational climate literature include coaches, PE teachers, and parents. An overall depiction of the peer task-involving and peer ego-involving motivational climates and their associated outcomes is provided in Figure 3 (panels A and B). Additionally, panel C illustrates the interplay between peer and coach motivational climate, while panel D shows the interplay among peer, coach, and parental motivational climates on predicting various outcomes.

The analysis of study methodology revealed that over half of the studies employed cross-sectional correlational designs. While fewer in number, studies that utilized stronger methods, like longitudinal and intervention designs, were identified. Cross-sectional studies can identify associations between peer motivational climate and variables of interest but limit causal inferences. For example, a cross-sectional study indicated that coach and peer task-involving motivational climates were more associated with task cohesion than social cohesion (Weiss et al., 2021) but it could not determine the direction of this relationship. In contrast, a longitudinal study showed that peer ego-involving motivational climate negatively predicted mid-season cohesion (McLaren et al., 2017), providing stronger insights due to measurements taken at multiple time points, however, causality can again not be established with such designs.

Utilizing more advanced methods such as longitudinal design is particularly important to understand the temporal formation of peer motivational climate. For instance, in youth sport teams it is likely that the interactions between athletes are less impactful as some new players join the team at the beginning of the season. However, as the season or session progresses, their interactions can become more direct and at least stronger than those at the beginning of the season although the valence (positive or negative influence) may vary (if the same coach remains). In the same logic, how peers communicate in the mid-season can also differ how they do at the end of the season. Thus, tracing peer motivational climate across time will provide a developmental perspective of the peer- motivational climate for practitioners.

Studies examining peer motivational climate as an outcome were conducted in sports (Duguay et al., 2016), physical education (Cheon et al., 2019; Rillo-Albert et al., 2021), and after-school settings (Dandan, 2019). Outside of this review, some interventions reinforced children's achievement goals through adult stakeholders (Bortoli et al., 2015; McLaren et al., 2015; Mouratidou et al., 2022), primarily focusing on adult-athlete or student relationships. Future research should develop interventions that specifically target peer interactions within the motivational climate framework, as evidence from this review indicated that peer motivational climate strongly predicts adaptive outcomes in youth sport and physical activity. Interventions could draw on theoretical frameworks such as Achievement goal theory and Self-determination theory) to test the effects of peer task- and ego-involving motivational climate using confederates who model each climate in the exercise and physical activity settings. Additional studies could examine the combined effects of peer motivational climate and basic psychological need support (e.g., autonomy, relatedness) to clarify how peer influences operate across theoretical perspectives.

This scoping review identified diverse outcome variables reflecting the multifaceted impact of peer motivational climate across contexts. Among these, affective and behavioral outcomes emerged as particularly prominent, highlighting the central role of emotions, enjoyment, and intention to continue or dropout in understanding how peers influence motivation and behavior. Notably, relatively few studies have examined behavioral intentions over time, underscoring the need for longitudinal approaches to capture how peer-related motivational processes evolve and contribute to sustained engagement or dropout. Specifically, longitudinal studies reported that a peer task-involving motivational climate positively predicted persistence (Jõesaar et al., 2011; Le Bars et al., 2009) while another study found no significant relationships between peer motivational climate and intention to continue (Ntoumanis et al., 2012). Due to the inconsistent findings, future research should examine behavioral outcomes with various mediating factors from a longitudinal perspective.

As the scoping review showed, cohesion was less frequently studied despite its importance in group dynamics (Eys and Brawley, 2018). Diverse environmental factors can make significant contributions to continuous team development (Arrow et al., 2004). Since peer interactions differ from those with adult social agents, how athletes perceive their roles within the team may vary based on different peer motivational climates. For instance, applying social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), athletes may establish an in-group identity for their team while resisting out-group perceptions of other teams. It is anticipated that athletes who perceive their own group as attractive might promote ideal level of peer motivational climate whereas those whose perception of group identity is weak might foster minimal level or any type of peer motivational climate regardless of the norm. Exploring how contrasting peer motivational climates influence these in- and out-group dynamics could provide valuable insights. Likewise, investigating other group development concepts, such as role perceptions or subgroups, may offer intriguing avenues for future peer motivational climate research.

A peer task-involving motivational climate is frequently linked to most of the adaptive outcomes across the emerging categories. In contrast, while peer ego-involving motivational climate tends to show positive associations with maladaptive outcomes, the results are less consistent across categories.

Regarding motivation and psychological needs, most of the results showed that a peer task-involving motivational climate was positively associated with the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, and autonomy support from coaches and teachers. Notably, satisfaction of the need for relatedness was the most closely associated with a peer task-involving motivational climate (Magbanua Jr, 2015). This contrasts with earlier research indicating that coach task-involving motivational climate was more strongly associated with autonomy (Reinboth and Duda, 2006) and competence (Ahmadi et al., 2012) than relatedness need satisfaction. These associations between task-involving motivational climates from peers and coaches and need satisfaction may stem from the different levels of authority between peers and coaches, which influence how athletes perceive and interpret similar motivational climates.

Peer ego-involving motivational climate has shown greater inconsistencies across outcomes. For instance, Vazou (2010) found that athletes' perceptions of peer ego climate varied significantly based on their achievement ego goal orientations. Moreover, a study conducted in the PE context found that peer ego-involving motivational climate, similarly to peer task-involving motivational climate, predicted both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance adoption (Warburton, 2017). Other studies have reported positive associations between peer ego-involving motivational climate and outcomes such as life skills (Mossman et al., 2021), commitment, and perceived competence (Chan et al., 2012; Tamminen et al., 2016). Importantly, however, a greater number of null findings has been reported for peer ego-involving motivational climate compared to peer task-involving motivational climate.

These discrepancies should be interpreted with caution. Although some studies report positive associations between peer ego-involving motivational climate and psychological or behavioral outcomes, the presence of negative and null findings precludes drawing firm conclusions. Importantly, these findings should not be interpreted as evidence supporting the intentional promotion of ego-involving motivational climates in youth sport or physical activity contexts. Rather, future research is needed to clarify the conditions under which such perceptions emerge and how they are experienced by youth. In particular, using alternative measurement approaches (e.g., distinguishing approach- and avoidance-oriented ego climate dimensions; Barkoukis et al., 2007), as well as examining moderating factors such as age, sport culture, and type of sport, may help elucidate patterns of peer ego-involving motivational climate perceptions among children and adolescents.

In addition to studies that focus solely on peer motivational climate in the physical domain, this scoping review identified four types of interplay between motivational climates created by different social agents, with the interaction between coach, parental, and peer motivational climate being the most frequently examined. Results indicate that coaches, parents, and peers have uniquely contributed to youth athletes' sports experiences.

Interestingly, the task-involving motivational climates created by parents and peers often had a more significant effect on athlete's task goal orientations and persistence than the task-involving motivational climate created by coaches (Atkins et al., 2015; Jõesaar and Hein, 2011). Similarly, coach and peer task-involving motivational climates were found to be more influential than parental task-involving motivational climate in predicting athletes' burnout and engagement (Habeeb et al., 2023). The importance of coaches and peers increased as athletes progressed in their athletic development (McCann et al., 2022). This may reflect the different stages of youth athletic development (e.g., sampling, specializing, and investment stages) or the athlete's history in a team (just joining a team vs. playing for a team relatively longer than other members), that may be impacted differently by each stakeholder. As athletes progress in their sport and invest more time and effort, they tend to place greater emphasis on skills, performance, and match outcomes—areas where coaches and peers exert a stronger influence than parents, whose role becomes more limited. This shift may also suggest that certain aspects of parental involvement in athletes' motivation evolve alongside developmental changes. Future research should focus on contextual or dispositional factors such as coaching philosophies (or parenting styles) and the cues used by social agents, to better understand their influence on youth sport experience.

Distinct roles of social agents were observed at different developmental stages regarding predicting moral behaviors. Davies et al. (2016) found that overall teams (coaches and peers) were more crucial for younger athletes, while peers independently played a larger role for older athletes and parents were important across all age groups. Chan et al. (2012) also noted that parents had a significant impact only on children, peers' role was greater for adolescents, and athletes at all ages were influenced by coaches. Although this is a small number of studies, these results align with developmental literature indicating that children increasingly rely on peer feedback or comparison to assess their competence as they transition from late childhood to adolescence (Horn and Hasbrook, 1986; Horn and Weiss, 1991). However, mixed results emerged regarding the influence of adult social agents (coaches and parents) across developmental stages, possibly due to different educational styles or the context in which these agents operate. More research is needed to clarify the dynamics between youth sports participants and adult social agents.

The role of a teacher (e.g., in PE) in the interplay of peer motivational climate with the climate created by other social agents seems understudied in the existing literature. This is surprising, given that positive PE experiences not only enable children to stay active on and off the school (Barkoukis et al., 2010; Cox et al., 2008) but also contribute to enhanced academic achievement (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). While not many, the studies in the current review support the positive influences (autonomy support and task-involving motivational climates) created by teachers and peers (Cheon et al., 2019; Rodrigues et al., 2020; Rillo-Albert et al., 2021; Warburton, 2017). Thus, both in-school and out of school physical activity practices should be explored based on how peers interact with one another from the lenses of motivational climate and successfully develop translational research in this area. An example of applying a peer motivational climate to provide enjoyable and need-supportive lessons to students is the field experimental study by Vazou et al. (2019), which manipulated the content of fitness activities in PE by providing positive peer interactions (peer task-involving climate through teamwork and play) compared to negative peer interactions (peer task-involving climate through competitive tasks and structures).

In this scoping review one study explored the interplays between peers, coaches, and the team captain, revealing that only team captain task-involving motivational climate had a positive association with enjoyment (Urquhart, 2016). Although research on the motivational climate created by team captains is limited, this result is not surprising. This may be largely due to the unique position of team captain, in which she or he is able to not only have close communication but also set an expectation of how the behavior of the rest of the athletes should look. When these expectations align with an emphasis on skill mastery and self-improvement, rather than competition against others, athletes experience greater enjoyment in the sports setting. Exploring the distinct roles of peers in exercise contexts (e.g., leaders vs. followers) and how they are intertwined with adult-created motivational climates, would be a valuable direction for future research.

This scoping review revealed several discussion points but also had limitations. First, while it included a broad array of studies (from primary papers to gray literature) from multiple continents, only those written in English were reviewed. This language limitation restricts the range of key findings that could help us better understand peer motivational climate. To address this, future research can include studies published in non-English journal. Second, this review did not explore the specific tools used to measure peer motivational climate. Although most cross-sectional studies used the PeerMCYSQ (Ntoumanis and Vazou, 2005), as the first tool developed to measure this construct, a small number of studies used distinct tools (Le Bars et al., 2006; Papaioannou, 1994). Importantly, the conceptualization of peer motivational climate may vary across measures. For example, in the PeerMCYSQ (Ntoumanis and Vazou, 2005), Intra-Team Conflict is treated as a defining feature of the peer climate and captures behaviors that actively undermine peer relatedness (i.e., relatedness-thwarting interactions), whereas in other motivational climate frameworks such behaviors are typically conceptualized as consequences of an ego-involving climate rather than as components of the climate itself. As the number of studies that use different tools increases, future research should consider how differences in measurement, validation, and contextual application may influence interpretations of peer motivational climate. Lastly, although this scoping review provided a broad overview of research on peer motivational climate, it did not assess study quality. As more research accumulates, a systematic review and meta-analysis could provide more insightful interpretations of the extant literature.

Despite the limitations, this scoping review makes a significant contribution as the first to summarize the research evidence on peer motivational climates in sport and physical activity. In summary, our findings indicate that peers play a substantial role in shaping children's experiences in these environments, with various relationships observed between peer motivational climate and a range of outcomes. We highlight the importance of future research using advanced designs and considering factors closely tied to peer dynamics in broader contexts, as well as successfully translating research into practice. Importantly, we hope that adult stakeholders apply these insights in practice to enhance young people's experiences in sport and physical activity. Specifically, adult stakeholders such as coaches, PE teachers and trainers should carefully consider contextual factors such as how their instructional strategies shape peer interactions by avoiding excessive emphasis on peer comparison and minimizing competitive structures (e.g. group formations) that may shift attention toward others' performance (Vazou et al., 2019). Moreover, clarifying the inconsistent effects of peer ego-involving motivational climate and its differential impact relative to adult-created climates remains an important research priority. From an applied perspective, adult stakeholders should prioritize the cultivation of task-involving motivational climates while being attentive to how competitive elements naturally arise within peer interactions. Emphasizing the quality and consistency of task-involving cues may help ensure that such elements do not undermine adaptive motivational experiences for participants.