Exploring Motives for Engaging in Physical Activity in Relation to Health and Vitality

The aim of the present investigation was to study underlying motives of different types namely Interest/Enjoyment, Competence, Appearance, Fitness and Social motive for engaging in physical activities, sports or any form of exercise. Another objective was to study the relationships of these motives with the indices of mental health and vitality. For this purpose 130 exercisers (62 males and 68 females) were administered a set of three tests. In order to measure the above mentioned motives, Motives for Physical activity scale- Revised (Ryan et al.,1997) was used. General Health Questionnaire by Goldberg and Williams (1988) assessing four dimensions of mental health was used, the dimensions being Anxiety, Depression, Social Dysfunction and Self confidence. Subjective Vitality that is considered an aspect of eudaimonic well-being was assessed using Vitality scale by Ryan and Frederick (1997).

Descriptive statistics, t-test and correlation analyses were used to analyze the data. Results clearly revealed significant correlations between different dimensions of motives, indices of mental health and vitality. Some gender specific findings were also observed that will be discussed.