The Effects of Fear of Failure and Dysfunctional Beliefs about Appearance on Exercise Addiction in Athletes

Physical activity can reduce the risk of lifestyle-related diseases, and improve physical function, quality of life, as well as psychological wellbeing. However, despite the health benefits of physical activity, over-exercising does not present health benefits; it rather leads to exercise addiction. This condition generates several adverse consequences on athletes’ biopsychological health. Therefore, it seems necessary to prepare appropriate plans to prevent exercise addiction in athletes. This requires the identification of factors that affect exercise addiction among athletes. Previous research studies revealed that the fear of failure in performance and dysfunctional beliefs about appearance are the major psychological factors that result in other addictive behaviors. However, evidence on the effects of these variables on exercise addiction is scarce. The present study aimed to determine the effects of fear of failure and dysfunctional beliefs about appearance on exercise addiction in athletes.

This was a correlational study. The statistical population of this study included all 20-year-old athletes in 2019; of them, 200 individuals were randomly selected from internet sports groups on social networks, as the research sample. Finally, after collecting information from the study samples and discarding the distorted and incomplete questionnaires, a total of 95 questionnaires were analyzed. The inclusion criteria of the present study were as follows: having at least 5 years of experience in practicing consecutive and regular exercise, having a minimum literacy to complete the questionnaires, and willingness to participate in the study. The exclusion criteria included practicing irregular and cross-sports, unwillingness to continue cooperation in the research, and illiteracy. To collect the required data, the Beliefs about Appearance Scale (Spangler, 1999), Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (Conroy et al., 2002), and Exercise Dependence Scale-21 (Hausenblas & Symons Downs, 2002) were used. To analyze the collected data, descriptive statistics (mean & SD), Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression analysis were performed in SPSS. The significance level of all tests was considered 0.05.

Pearson correlation coefficient data revealed that dysfunctional beliefs about appearance presented a direct and significant relationship on exercise addiction (r=0.242, p=0.001). However, there was no significant relationship between fear of failure in performance and exercise addiction in the examined athletes (r=0.061, p=0.400).  Furthermore, there was a direct and significant relationship between fear of failure in performance and dysfunctional beliefs about appearance (r=0.152, p=0.033). The results of the adjusted coefficient of determination indicated that exercise addiction was approximately 5% affected by beliefs about appearance and fear of failure. 

According to the obtained results, athletes’ dysfunctional beliefs about their physical appearance can affect the incidence of exercise addiction among them; however, the extent of this effect is slight. Accordingly, further investigation is required to support this finding.