A report on psychological well-being and physical self-perception in five sports groups

Abstract

This research compared psychological well-being and physical self-perceptions of convenience samples of health club members, hockey players, runners, soccer players, surfers and a control group of non-sports persons. All sports groups perceived themselves to be significantly more psychologically well than the control group. There were no significant differences in perceived psychological well-being among the sports groups themselves, who ranked from highest to lowest in the following order: surfers, soccer players, runners, hockey players and health club members. Only surfers and soccer players had higher physical self-perception scores than the control group. However, between group comparisons for physical self-perception indicated that surfers scored significantly higher than health club members, hockey players and runners, and that soccer players scored significantly higher than health club members and runners. The relevance of these findings and further implications for health and sport psychological research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Physical activity, sport, exercise; psychological well-being, physical self-perception.