Objective  To explore the comprehensive influence of the adaptive perfectionism and autonomous motivation on adolescents' exercise adherence and test the moderating effect of parental autonomy support.

  Methods  The Parental Autonomy Support Sub-scale of the Parents as Social Context Questionnaire(ParentReport), the Sub-scale of Personal Standards and Organization of the Chinese Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Perceived Locus of Causality Scale and the Outdoor Sport Adherence Scale for adolescents were adopted. 2 230 adolescents aged 12~18 years and their parents were tested.

  Results  The significantly positive effect on exercise adherence was all found in terms of the parental autonomy support, adolescents' adaptive perfectionism and autonomous motivation, with 3.7%, 30.3% and 38.3% of deviation, respectively. Furthermore, the significantly positive mediating effect was all found on the part of autonomous motivation, the parental autonomy support, and the gender difference in terms of the influence chain between adolescents' adaptive perfectionism and the exercise adherence, with 0.426 as the indirect effect value of the three, which accounted for 77.45% of the total effect.

  Conclusion  Adolescents' adaptive perfectionism could not only directly affect the exercise persistence, but also indirectly affect their exercise persistence by promoting autonomous motivation. Parents'support for adolescent physical exercise could have the positive impacts on adolescents' adaptive perfectionism and autonomous motivation of physical exercise. Compared with female adolescents, male adolescents have the stronger exercise autonomous motivation and the better exercise adherence.