Perfectly Active Teenagers. When Does Physical Exercise Help Psychological Well-Being in Adolescents?

Juan González-Hernández, Manuel Gómez-López, José Antonio Pérez-Turpin, Antonio Jesús Muñoz-Villena and Eliseo Andreu-Cabrera
Additional contact information
Juan González-Hernández: Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Manuel Gómez-López: Department of Physical Activity and Sports, University of Murcia, Santiago de la Ribera, 30720 Murcia, Spain
José Antonio Pérez-Turpin: Department of General Didactics and Specific Didactics, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain
Antonio Jesús Muñoz-Villena: Department of Physical Education, Sport and Human Movement, Autonomous University of Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Eliseo Andreu-Cabrera: Department of Evolutionary Psychology and Didactics, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: In the context of physical activity and sport, perfectionism and the regular practice of physical activity are related to psychological well-being and the regulation of psychological resources necessary for adaptation to effort and satisfaction. At the same time, the most active students are also those who show greater appetites for physical education classes. The goal of this work was to identify the influence of perfectionist beliefs and the regularity of the practice of physical exercise on psychological well-being. The participants were adolescents ( n = 436) aged between 14 and 19 years (M = 16.80, SD = .77). They were administered the Multidimensional Perfection Scale, the Psychological Wellbeing Scale, the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQv2), and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The results showed, under a non-random and transversal design, that the participants gave important value to physical exercise because they feel both active and vigorous. Regarding perfectionism, the functional aspects of perfectionism (expectations of achievement and organization) correlated positively, while the dysfunctional aspects (fear of committing errors and external expectations) did so negatively with the importance given to physical exercise performed by adolescents; this in turn positively predicted psychological well-being. In this way, the hypothesized model contemplated the relevance of the included variables and reflected the mediation of the degree of importance given to the practice of physical exercise on perfectionist beliefs and psychological well-being. Currently, most physical activity practice proposals for adolescents focus on federated and structured environments for competition, and those that deal with recreational and health-oriented sports are far less common. Hence, "the perfect way of doing sports" for a teenager should be accompanied by cognitive schemes aimed at strengthening psychological resources that allow the regulation of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Keywords: perfectionism; expectations; self-assessment; physical activity; young people (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/22/4525/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/22/4525/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:22:p:4525-:d:287468

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().