THE EFFECT OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS ON COLLEGIATE ATHLETES’ LIVES WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO GENDER DIFFERENCES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46827/ejpe.v0i0.860Keywords:
athlete entourage, romantic partner, happiness, athletic life, life outside sportsAbstract
Romantic partners are an important entourage for athletes. The purpose of the present study was to examine the difference in well-being and positive spillover effect between nationwide collegiate athletes with and without romantic partners. Furthermore, it is expected that the difference would depend on gender as well; hence, the quality of the relationship between an athlete and their romantic partner and its effects were examined with respect to gender. An internet survey was conducted for 205 collegiate athletes (mean age = 19.78, SD = 1.03) via registered monitors at Japanese social research companies. The chi-square test showed that the effect of the presence or absence of romantic partner did not differ according to gender (p = 0.074). The ANOVAs revealed that the romantic partner × gender interaction had an effect on positive spillover between athletic life and life outside sports (p = .047). According to sub effect tests, positive spillover was higher in male athletes having romantic partners than those who did not (p = .001). The result of correlational analyses among those having romantic partners showed that for males, satisfaction with a romantic partner was related to interdependent happiness (p = .004) and positive spillover (p = .002). For females, satisfaction with a romantic partner was related to subjective happiness (p = .001) and interdependent happiness (p = .001). Thus, the present study identified that irrespective of gender, athletes having romantic partners had better well-being and spillover effect than who did not, proving the importance of romantic partners in collegiate athletes’ lives.
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