A comparison of Psychological Well-Being in Athlete and Non-Athlete Students

Today researchers consider sports as one of the methods of reinforcing psychological parameters development. The purpose of the present study was to compare psychological well-being in the athlete and non-athlete (ordinary) students. This was a cross sectional study and the statistical population included all high school students of Miyandoab city during 2012-2013 educational year. The statistical sample of the research included 100 athlete student and 100 non-athlete student who were selected through multistage cluster sampling. The participants answered Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Scale (with 0.68 reliability). Data were analyzed using independent two sample t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results of t-test revealed that psychological well-being of the athlete students (81.86±14.89) was significantly higher than non-athlete students (76.13±9.22) (p<0.001). Results of multivariate analysis of variances indicated that positive relationship with others and purpose in life of athlete students (13.82±3.89 and 14.97±3.43, respectively) were significantly higher than non-athlete students (11.74±2.73 and 12.50±2.80 respectively) (p<0.001), while there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of self-acceptance, environmental mastery, personal growth and autonomy (p>0.05). The results revealed that athlete students were in better position with regard to psychological well-being, positive relationship with others and purpose in life than non-athlete students.