Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 1176-1181
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.168 1176
R
ELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
E
STABLISHMENT OF
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
C
APITAL AND
S
USTAINED
E
XERCISE OF
C
OLLEGE
S
TUDENTS
Tengfei Fan
Abstract
Psychological capital (PsyCap) the positive and developmental state of an individual as characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency. Sustained exercise has positive effects on both physical fitness and mental health. This paper assumes that PsyCap and sustained exercise are affected by different factors, and explores the relationship between the two issues. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted in Nanjing University, China. The results of the first survey were used to determine the status quo of PsyCap establishment among college students. Based on the data of the second survey, the correlation between PsyCap and sustained exercise were examined through correlation analysis and regression analysis. The results show that college students were poor in terms of PsyCap, which is affected by factors like gender, student origin, poverty and academic records; sustained exercise has a significant positive effect on every dimension of the PsyCap among college students; the exercise frequency had the greatest impact on PsyCap, followed by exercise time. The research findings provide new insights on the PsyCap establishment of college students.
Key words: Psychological Capital (PsyCap), Physical Quality, Psychological Quality, Sustained Exercise, Exercise Frequency.
Received: 09-02-19 | Accepted: 23-07-19
INTRODUCTION
Sport is one of the important factors affecting the establishment of college students' PsyCap. It stimulates students' enthusiasm for life with its interestingness, fitness and competitiveness. Healthy body and positive attitude are
conductive to the individual's sound
development of cognition, emotion and consciousness (Nobutoshi, Aya, & Takeo, 2018). The people having sustained exercises behave differently in dealing with psychological stress and establishing the PsyCap construction from those without regular sports. Sustained exercise can alleviate psychological stress and promote the establishment of PsyCap (Tamer, Dereli, & Saglam, 2014; Youssef-Morgan & Luthans, 2015). PsyCap can reflect the individual's self-view and
Qufu Normal University, Qufu 273165, China. E-Mail: [email protected]
self-esteem, that is, the individual's positive mental ability. It needs to show a positive attitude in a specific situation, having the characteristics of long-lasting, uniqueness,
accommodability, interconnectivity and
renewability (Harms, Vanhove, & Luthans, 2016). PsyCap has four dimensions of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience, influenced by family factors, physical fitness,
self-reinforcement, sense of control, and
interpersonal relationships (Bravo, Pearson, & Kelley, 2018).
Sustained exercise is the main way for college students to improve their sports skills, relax body and mind, and ease learning pressures (Essiet, Baharom, Shahar et al., 2017). Exercises contribute to the improvement of mental health. Moreover, some researchers have found that there is a significant positive correlation between exercise habits and PsyCap, and it has a good positive predictive effect (Telford, Olive, Cochrane et al., 2016; Calian, 2007). College
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students are at an important establishment stage of psychological development and psychological quality. But there are significant differences in the current measurement of PsyCap among different groups of college students. Other existing methods of establishing PsyCap are not fully applicable to college students, and there have been few studies on the influence of sustained exercises on college students' PsyCap (Thompson Coon, Boddy, Stein et al., 2011; Hsu, Wang, Chen, et al., 2014). In this context, the paper attempts to explore the relationship between the establishment of college students' PsyCap and sustained exercise on the assumption that the PsyCap of college students is multi-dimensional, and there exist the differences between the establishment of continuous sports and PsyCap under the same influencing factors. This study shall provide a theoretical basis for the establishment of college students' PsyCap.
STATUS SURVEY ON COLLEGE STUDENTS' PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL ESTABLISHMENT
Research objects and methods
Figure 1
.
Psychological capital model of
college students
Current state of psychological capital
Self-efficacy
Toughness
Optimistic
Hope
Success or failure experience
Response
Adaptation
Emotional experience
Expect
Prospect
Strive, Target, Ideal, Plan
PsyCap is regarded as a positive psychological resource and attitude, or as a stateful mental energy (Yongzhan, 2018; Michaelidou & Moraes, 2014). Figure 1 shows the PsyCap model of college students: for college students, self-efficacy is mainly reflected in the success and failure experience, including support from schools, families and friends; the resilience dimension is mainly in the response and adapting characteristics of college students; the
optimism reflects the college students’
emotions, expectations, and prospects; the hope reflects their efforts, goals, ideals, and plans. In order to explore the status of college students' PsyCap, we analysed the influence of college students' gender, origin, poverty (family factors) and academic records on the establishment of PsyCap. Table 1 lists the basic situation of 200 college students from Nanjing university.
They’re scored using a 7-point scale. The data was analysed by SPSS.
Table 1.
Basic information of subjects
Item Category Quantity Proportion
Gender Male 100 50%
Female 100 50%
Origin of student
Town 126 63%
Countryside 74 37%
Poverty No 141 70.5%
Yes 59 29.5%
Academic record
Good 57 28.5%
Medium 102 51%
Poor 41 20.5%
Analysis for the status and differences of
college students' psychological capital
establishment
As a category of psychological theory, PsyCap is a natural innate feature of college students, characterized by persistence, stability, and developability (Klaperski, Von Dawans, Heinrichs et al., 2013). Figure 2 shows the establishment of college students' PsyCap. It can be clearly seen that except for the self-efficacy dimension, the scores of resilience, hope and optimism were all lower than the total average score, indicating a poor PsyCap for the college students. Figure 3 shows the influence of various factors on the
establishment of college students’ PsyCap.
Figure 3(a) shows the influence of gender factor on each dimension of PsyCap, in which the male
students’ scores were higher than that of
females in the dimensions of self-efficacy and resilience, and these two dimensions show a significant difference in terms of gender factor; but the scores of male and female students
didn’t show differences in the dimension of hope
and optimism, which is related to the differences in thinking, psychological and emotional cognition between them. Figure 3(b) shows factor of the source of students. It can be seen that the scores of urban students in all dimensions were higher than those from rural sources, and the resilience, optimism and hope
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND SUSTAINED EXERCISE OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1178
dimensions of PsyCap show great differences in terms of this factor. Figure 3(c) shows the influence of poverty factors. It can be seen that this factor had no great impact on each dimension of PsyCap, and the scores of poor college students were slightly higher than the non-poor students in the optimistic and hopeful dimensions. Figure 4(d) shows the influence of academic record factor on each dimension of PsyCap, clearly indicating that the students with better academic records scored higher, and all dimensions of PsyCap showed significant differences in terms of this factor.
Figure 2
.
The establishment of psychological
capital of college students
3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5
Hptimistic Hope
Toughness Self-efficacy
Total
A
ve
ra
ge
sc
or
e
Figure 3
.
The influence of various factors on the establishment of psychological capital of college
students
3 4 5 6 7
A
v
er
ag
e sc
o
re
Male Female
Total Self-efficacy Toughness Hope Hptimistic 3
4 5 6 7
A
v
er
ag
e sc
o
re
Town Countryside
Total Self-efficacy Toughness Hope Hptimistic
(a) Gender (b) Origin of student
3 4 5 6 7
A
v
er
ag
e sc
o
re
Poverty No poverty
Total Self-efficacy Toughness Hope Hptimistic 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5
Total Good Medium Poor
A
v
er
ag
e sc
o
re
Toughness Optimistic
Hope Self-efficacy
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF COLLEGE STUDENTS'
PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND SUSTAINED EXERCISE
Research objects and methods
Sustained exercise refers to regular exercise under the allowable physical conditions. Exercises can prevent and improve mental illness, thereby increasing mental health. This section explores the relationship between the establishment of college students' PsyCap and sustained exercise. In addition to the various dimensions of college students' PsyCap, it is also necessary to determine the actual situation of
college students’ sustained exercise, including the exercise frequency per week, the exercise time for each time, and exercise intensity etc. Table 2 lists the basic situation of the subjects in the formal questionnaires. This survey selected 600 college students from Nanjing University. Using convenient sampling method, 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 581 valid questionnaires were collected. The survey data was analysed statistically using SPSS system software, to carry out the correlation analysis and regression analysis for the sustained exercises and PsyCap in each dimension for the college students. The data analysis eliminated the data of the first 10% and the last 10% of each dimension or item in the calculation scale, so as to delete the data value with larger error.
Research results
Table 2 shows the reliability analysis in each
dimension of the college students’ PsyCap, in
which the scores of the total scale and each dimension had high credibility. Figure 4 shows the exercise frequency of college students every week. Most college students exercised 1-2 times a week or 3-4 times a week, all maintaining a good exercise habit. Figure 5 shows the exercise time of college students for each time. It can be seen that most college students had sustained exercise time of 31-60 minutes, 28.74% had less than 30 minutes of exercise time each time, and less than 30% students had exercise time for over 60 minutes. Figure 6 shows the exercise
intensity and frequency of each college student each time. The college students mainly took the mid- and low-intensity exercises, and some students perform high-intensity or continuous high-intensity exercise.
Figure 4
.
College students continue to play
sports on a weekly basis
25.96% 30.77%
38.46%
4.81%
Less than once a week Once or twice a week Three to four times a week At least five times a week
Figure 5
.
The amount of time a college
student keeps playing sports
12.64% 16.09% 42.53%
28.74%
≤30min 31-60min 61-120min
＞120min
Figure 6
.
The intensity and frequency of
each sustained exercise of college students
10.24% 10.73% 35.12%
32.2% 11.71%
Slight exercise Low intensity exercise Medium intensity exercise High intensity exercise Continuous high intensive exercise
Table 2.
The reliability analysis of psychological capital of college students
Dimension Total Self-efficacy Toughness Optimistic Hope
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND SUSTAINED EXERCISE OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1180
The relationship between sustained exercise and the establishment of psychological capital
In order to explore the relationship between the establishment of college students' PsyCap and sustained exercise more clearly, we conducted Pearson analysis between sports behaviour and PsyCap. Figure 7 shows the correlation coefficient between sustained exercise and PsyCap. It can be seen that there is a significant positive correlation between the continuous sports behaviours of college students and each dimension of PsyCap, and the correlation coefficient in the self-efficacy dimension of PsyCap was significantly higher than in other dimensions, reflecting that the sustained exercises bring more self-confidence to college students; in addition, the exercise time for each time is positively correlated with the establishment of various dimensions of PsyCap; the intensity of regular sports has less significant impact on the establishment of PsyCap than the exercise frequency and the time, and the exercise intensity has the least impact on the optimism dimension.
Figure 7
.
Correlation coefficient between
sustained exercises and psychological
capital
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45
Exercise intensity Exercise time per time
C
o
rr
el
at
io
n
co
ef
fi
ci
en
t
Exercise times per week Self-efficacy Toughness Optimistic Hope
Sustained exercises involve exercise frequency, exercise time and exercise intensity. In order to explore the relative contribution rate of regular sports behaviour to the various dimensions of college students' PsyCap, the four dimensions of PsyCap were analysed using standardized regression. Figure 8 shows the standardized regression coefficients of sustained exercise and each dimension of PsyCap which were all positive values, indicating that the
effects of sustained exercises behaviour on the four dimensions of PsyCap were positive. Regression analysis of regular sports behaviour shows that exercise frequency has the greatest impact on PsyCap, followed by exercise time. In summary, sustained exercise has a positive predictive effect on the establishment of college students' PsyCap, which is conducive to the healthy development of college students' physical and psychological quality.
Figure
8
.
Standardized
regression
coefficients of various dimensions of
sustained exercises and psychological
capital
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25
0.30 Self-efficacy
Toughness Optimistic Hope
S
ta
n
d
ar
d
iz
ed
re
g
re
ss
io
n
co
ef
fi
ci
en
t
Exercise times per week Exercise time per time Exercise intensity
CONCLUSIONS
The paper attempts to explore the relationship between the establishment of college students' PsyCap and sustained exercise on the assumption that there exist the differences in the factors affecting the two. The specific conclusions are as follows:
(1) The PsyCap of the subjects was in a poor state. The establishment of PsyCap was related to factors such as gender, origin of students, poverty and academic records. The scores of male students was significantly higher than that of female students in the self-efficacy and resilience dimensions; the scores of college students from urban areas were higher than those of rural sources in each dimension; the poverty factor had little effect on each dimension of PsyCap; the students with better academic performance scored higher in each dimension;
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correlation between sustained exercises behaviours of college students and each dimension of PsyCap, and the correlation coefficient in the self-efficacy dimension of PsyCap was significantly higher than in other dimensions, reflecting that the sustained exercises bring more self-confidence to college students;
(3) The sustained exercises behaviour had a positive effect on the four dimensions of PsyCap. Exercise frequency of sustained exercises had the greatest impact on PsyCap, followed by exercise time.
Acknowledgement
Planning Research Project of Social Sciences and Humanities in Shandong Province: The Study on the Cultivation of National Spirit and the Education of Martial Arts in Colleges and Universities. Number: 16DTYI02.
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