Verification of causal relationships between passion, social behavior and the exercise dependence of athletes

Factors strengthening exercise dependence are found in the temperamental disposition of athletes and environmental variables. We aim to understand the antecedents that engender exercise dependence and unearth the environmental variables that can control exercise-dependent symptoms. The purpose of this study is to verify causal relationships between passion, social behavior and exercise dependence.

Passion, social behavior and exercise dependence of 216 university athletes registered as players with the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee as of 2021 were measured. SPSS 24.0, PROCESS Macro (V.2.13), and Amos 24.0 programs were used for data analysis.

First, passion (harmonious, obsessive) had a significantly positive effect on social behavior (prosocial and antisocial behavior). Second, antisocial behavior had a significantly positive effect on the subfactors of exercise dependence such as tolerance, withdrawal, time, reduction in other activities, and continuance. Third, as a result of verifying the mediating effects based on direct effects, harmonious passion had significant indirect effects on all factors, except tolerance, by mediating antisocial behavior, and obsessive passion had significant indirect effects on all variables, except intention effects and lack of control, by mediating antisocial behavior.

We discovered implications on a new variable in the relationship between passion and exercise dependence. In the future, sport-psychology sociologists must continuously seek variables that can control this.