Abstract

1. The Relationship between Being Bullied and Exercise Motivation Erica Anderson and Yun Park Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Faculty Advisor: Dr. Victoria Kazmerski • Discussion • The significance of our correlation between self-determined motivation and degree of bully experience shows a moderate negative relationship between the two variables. In other words, the more one has experienced bullying during early adolescence, the less self-determined their motivation beliefs will tend to be later in life. • Our first hypothesis that those who were bullied more during early adolescence would show less self-determined motivation for exercise was supported. • With regards to possible gender differences, we found that females were significantly less motivated when they experienced higher levels of bullying, whereas this relationship was not shown by males. • Our hypothesis that there would be gender differences, specifically that females would show less self-determined motivation when compared to males, was not supported. • Overall, the college students we tested were internally motivated, which maybe related to prior bullying experiences. Abstract Being bullied during adolescence and poor exercise habits are both serious problems in the American society. Previous research has found that bullying towards overweight youth is becoming increasingly evident in settings of physical education, especially when the victim is a girl (Peterson, et al., 2012). No existing research has focused on the long-term effects of bullying specifically relating to exercise motivation styles. This study intended to find a relationship between being bullied during early adolescence and exercise motivation later in life. We hypothesized that scores for exercise motivation amongst college students would be greater for those students who had been a victim of bullying during early adolescence. Our second hypothesis predicted that females would be less motivated to exercise if bullied in the past compared to males. We assessed participants’ degree of bullying experience and how they regulate exercise motivation. As predicted, there was a significant negative relationship between bullying experiences and exercise motivation. However, no substantial gender difference was found between motivation regulation styles. Exercise plays a vital role in weight management and those who are overweight tend to experience peer victimization (being bullied) more frequently (Peterson, et al., 2012). • Method • Participants • 61 Penn State Erie students (22 males/39 females) • Recruited through Penn State Behrend SONA system • Materials • RetrospectiveBullying Questionnaire (Schaefer, Korn, Smith, Hunter, Mora-Merchan, Singer, & Meulen, 2004). • “Were you physically bullied at secondary school?” with answer options such as “hit/punch:” with yes or no check boxes or “stolen from:” with yes or no check boxes. • ExerciseRegulationQuestionnaire (BREQ-2)(Markland & Tobin, 2010). • Internal/intrinsic motivation: “I exercise because it’s fun.” • Introjected regulation: “I feel guilty when I don’t exercise.” • External/extrinsic regulation: “I exercise because other people say I should.” • Identified regulation: “I value the benefits of exercise.” • Amotivation: “I don’t see why I should have to exercise.” • Procedure • Submission of each survey implied their consent to participate. • Each participant was offered campus personal counseling contact information. • Introduction • A recent survey reported that 82% of peer emotional victimization occurred in a school context (Turner, Finkelhor, Hamby, Shattuck, & Ormrod, 2011). • Bullying can be defined as any behavior intended to inflict harm or stress on the victim and occurs repeatedly over time (Steinfeldt et al., 2012). • Those who are overweight tend to experience peer victimization (being bullied) more frequently (Peterson, Puhl, & Luedicke, 2012). • Those who are more motivated to exercise for intrinsic reasons are more likely to have higher exercise motivation in the future than those who were motivated by extrinsic reasons (Gillison, Sebire, & Standage, 2011). • Girls who frequently receive negative feedback while in settings of physical activity, may be prone to making negative associations with such settings (Peterson, et al., 2012). • On the other end of the spectrum, some boys might turn to bodybuilding or exercising rather than unhealthy eating behaviors to compensate for lower self-image (Wolke & Sapouna, 2007). Results Female Male Degree of Self-Determination (RAI) Degree of Self-Determination (RAI) Degree of Bully Experience Degree of Bully Experience Figure 1. The relationship between degrees of bullying experienced and the degrees to which exercise motivation is self-determined (RAI),was significant, (r= -.364, p<.05, R2 Linear = 0.149) . Figure 2. The relationship between degrees of bullying experienced and the degrees to which motivation is self-determined for female participant, was significant, (r= -.376, p<.05, R2 Linear = 0.141). References Gillison, F., Sebire, S., & Standage, M. (2011). What motivates girls to take up exercise during adolescence? Learning from those who succeed. British Journal of Health Psychology, 17(3), 536-550. Peterson, J. L., Puhl, R.M., & Luedicke, J. (2012). An experimental investigation of physical education teachers’ and coaches’ reactions to weight-based victimization in youth. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 177-185. Steinfeldt, J.A., Vaughan, E.L., LaFollette, J.R., & Steinfeldt, M.C. (2012). Bullying among adolescent football players: Role of masculinity and moral atmosphere. Psychology of Men & Masculinity. 1-14. Turner, H. A., Finkelhor, D., Hamby, S. L., Shattuck, A., & Ormrod, R.K. (2011). Specifying type and location of peer victimization in a national sample of children and youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Wolke, D., & Sapouna, M. (2007). Big men feeling small: Childhood bullying experience, muscle dysmorphia and other mental health problems in bodybuilders. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9(5), 595-604. Purpose and Hypotheses Purpose: To investigate whether there is a relationship between being a victim to bullying and how much their motivation to exercise is self-determined later in life. Hypotheses 1) Those who experienced bullying in the past will tend to report less motivation to exercise that is self-determined. 2) Females who experienced more victimization in the past will show less motivation to exercise when compared to males. 3) Males will show more intrinsic motivation to exercise when compared to females, who will show more external motivation to exercise. • Acknowledgements • We would like to thank Penn State Undergraduate Research Grants program for the support of our research. We would also like to thank Dr. Victoria A. Kazmerski for the supervision of our research. • IRB #40941 Figure 3. External and internal subscale means for the RAI for male and female participants. Both males and females held significantly more internal motivational beliefs as opposed to external motivational beliefs towards exercising, F(59) = 42.59, p<.05. No main effect or interaction of gender was significant.