Research Article - (2012) Volume 2, Issue 5
Department of Physical Education, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran
In order to study of the relationship between locus of control (internal- external) and the feeling of the loneliness between athletic and non athletic girls, 60 athletic student participants in athletic teams of Karaj Azad University and 60 non athletic students who were 19-26 years old were considered as the subjects. Variables of this research included a feeling of loneliness, external locus of control (tendency to chance) and external locus of control (tendency to powerful people) into two groups. A feeling of the loneliness was measured by the UCLA questionnaire and locus of control was measured by the Lonsone questionnaire (I, P, C). Regarding to the meaningful relation between a feeling of loneliness and external locus of control (tendency to chance) in non athletes and meaningful difference in external locus of control (tendency to chance) between two groups it can be concluded that non athletes with external locus of control by having this idea that they have a less control on their life views, they feel loneliness more than others. The meaningful difference between a feeling loneliness in both groups confirmed the useful social and mental effect of sport activities. Also the existence of the meaningful difference between internal locus of control in two groups show that athletes have more control on their life and know themselves as responsive for their successes and defeats.
feeling of loneliness, internal locus of control, external locus of control, athletic, non athletic
Sport and different physical activities are used as a suitable tool for making health the physic and mind and creating joy and filling the free time in human. Multiple researches in different part of the world agree with this view that creating physical fitness can be used as a tool for prevention and treating the mental abnormalities and increase the physical capabilities [6]. Based on this case, the specialist of psychological domain, mental therapy, and physical education and sport science pay more attention to the effect of rate of physical activities on the health and mental health in order to find the suitable methods for creating public health. The obtained findings are indicators of close relationship between physical activities and improvement of mental conditions among feeling manner and selfknowledge [7,9].
Feeling of loneliness
Feeling of loneliness is a personal and psychological manner that involved individuals encounter with vaccum, sorrow, and un belong ness feeling and effect on their relation with others and their different life occasions in different methods Anxious result from perception of it, and the mainly negative attitude of society members to the people who know this feeling usually prevent its expression. The students showed that the climax of feeling of loneliness is in the adolescence.
Williams et al. (1988) believed that the feeling of loneliness can be seen in two ways:
1-active feeling of loneliness
2-passive feeling of loneliness
In the feeling of loneliness adolescence dealt with study ,exercise going to cinema, play music, doing unfinished works and etc,but in passive feeling of loneliness, adolescence spend their time for some works such as sleeping ,crying, thinking ,watching TV or listening radio ,and generally they don’t follow any special and clear purpose. In the first kind they use positively feeling of loneliness, but in second it caused the improvement the feeling of depression and uselessness. In such condition don’t have any tendency to acceptance of responsibility and risking. Ditommaso et al. (2005), in a research which was done a bout the effect of culture and family on the feeling of loneliness between two countries Canada and china, showed a meaning full relation between the effect of culture and family on the feeling of loneliness it means that in culture which emphasizes on the family (china), present feels less the feeling of loneliness than Canada. Also sociologists believed that the feeling of loneliness is under the effect of external and internal factors [5]. In industrial societies, three social factors cause the appearance of the increasing feeling of loneliness which includes:
1-reduction of meaningful group relationship
2-increase of place movement
3-increase of social evolutions
Bauminger (2000) studied the relationship of loneliness and friendship in 22 imaginative children with high performance and 19 children as sample which both groups have identical IQ, sex, base training and race. The children between 8-14 years old were as ked to report their understanding and feelings of loneliness and also quality of their friendships. The results of this research showed that the imaginative children were both more alone and had a more defective understanding of loneliness than the sample children. Although all of the imaginative children reported that they have at least one friend but the quality of their friendship was weak in cases such as companionship, trust and assistance. In a research by Jackson et al. (2000), on the students of viscansen university (n=180), the relation between shy, optimistic, social support and feeling of loneliness was studied. The result of research showed. That the low level of optimistic and social support cause increase of feeling of loneliness in addition participants, who were shy and had less social support experienced the high level oh the feeling of loneliness. Since depression can be a result of feeling of loneliness, it can be said that in spite of that these two cases are different from each other, but they have a special chase with each other in other side. Takakura and Sakihara (2001) in a research which was done about the incidence and consistence of these indicators in the form of negative has relation with positive heath practices more social support high self – respected and internal locus of control and mentioned factors maybe supportive factors of signs of depression among Japanese students.
Locus of control
To the some researchers such as Rotter (1986), Heinrich & Gullone (2006) and Ekwall (2004) one of the researchable and important aspects of personality is the study of locus of control in individuals. In this researchers' opinion, individuals are external or internal in the light of locus of control individuals who are external in the light of locus of control, have a lack of control on their life and they believed that what happened for them is a result of external factors such as chance, fate, other people and like them. In other words they don’t have any active role in their life. Individuals, who have internal control, know themselves as a ruler on their fate and undertake responsible of their success and defeat. Internals are more dominants on the behavior flow and have active manner while externals are more passive and non active. The internal locus of control is accompany with recognition, justice and realistic. While external locus of control has sentimental ,lack of recognition ,no justice against events or causes of behavior .Therefore ,the believers to the internal control at reaching purposes ,more attempts are spend and in addition to the more self-respected, they thought the control of their life affaires from their inside. Howard (1996) showed that the first year girl student who select role pattern for themselves, have a more internal locus of control than others who didn't recognize this pattern for themselves. Also this research show that internal locus of control in the first year girl student who didn't select any pattern for themselves, is reduced. In relation with locus of control and planning for activity, Lamber, Moore and Dixon (1999), stated that the best kind of targeting based on the locus of control of athlete. Before targeting is started on an activity, it is necessary that first locus of control of athlete determine by using test. Due to the locus of control of the individuals ,the purpose kind of plan should be determine .Individuals with internal locus of control should be applied in setting purposes While who have external locus of control should be equipped by a educator' purposes. Since having people with physical and mental health guarantee the performance and self-blooming of a society .Recognition of personality characteristics which leads individuals to do sport activities or escape from it, have important rote in healthy and educational decision making. In one side a better recognition of personality differences of athletic and non athletic individuals help us in providing possibilities proportional with abilities and physical and mental need, of athletes in order to great development in their performance and make non athletics interested in sport activities. Also research in the context of personality characteristic, give valuable in formation that can be effective for training and treating planning and also training and treating planning and also prevention and treating planning and also prevention of occurrence of mental abnormalities among feeling of loneliness, in addition to this, it provides useful information for teachers and educators of physical education until they can do better the selection of players, public guidance for selectors special field and way of effective instruction by having complete recognition. In other side development of sport culture among general pooper the society need such researches.
Statistical society of research includes au athletic and non athletic girls of Karaj Islamic Azad university 14282 persons the statistical sample of this research involve 120 persons of statistical society which include 60 athletic girls and 60 non athletic girls who are selected randomly. The athletic girl participants were considered who had at least 3 years history of playing and regular practice in one of the team field volleyball, Basketball or football who were in the rang of age 19-26 years in practices of sport teams of karaj university and the non athletic girls who participated in the physical education class and were at 19-26 years old. The method of present research was comparison correlation. In this research (internal-external) locus of control and feeling of loneliness among athletic and nonathletic girls was studied and analyzed to determine the portion of each variable in these relationship variables of research.
Research transitive
A) Feeling of loneliness: This measure includes 20 questions, related to the feeling of loneliness of individuals. Based on this measure, acquisition the higher scores is a sign of more rate of feeling of loneliness.
B) Internal locus of control (I), this variable has 8 matters and measures the rate of individual's beliefs to this subject that they themselves control their life. The high score in this rate is belong to individuals who imagine that heir success and defeats are determine by their own actions and ability (internal or personal factors) and they feel such that they have influence on the results of their actions and the positive life events are obtained as a result of their own attempt and plans. So they make themselves responsible of their action behavior, results and consequent.
C) Locus of control with tendency to powerful people (P): This variable also has 8 matters that are measured in relation with the perception of control by powerful people. High score is give to individuals who believed that Their success and defeat are determined by external factors especial powerful people and They don’t have any control on Their actions This variable measures an aspect of externality of locus of control (r).
D) locus of control with tendency to chance (c): this reliable include & maters related to perception of control by chance and measures the rate of individual belief to this subject that control of life consequence is by chance and the high score in this rate is especial to individuals who have belief to external factors especial chance and feat .These individual believed that they don’t have any control on the results of their action and occurrence of doing affairs is not related to doing an action by individual but they imagine the events in related to chance situation and external complex fours which Lenore the individual.
Instruments and methods of measuring
1- Questionnaire of the feeling of loneliness (UCLA) measure of loneliness (UCLA) was used for evaluating the feeling of loneliness of subjects which was made by Rashul Pilot and Fery Goose of California University in 1998. This measure is performed for different age reaps and different job section.
The measures which were used before compiling this test, they had less validity and consistency be cause of being long (38-70 questions) and they can't obtained exact results be cause of boring, so by using the form of loneliness UCLA. The mentioned problems were removed internal ideate of questions if measure was 0.93 by mentioned form and from 20 question formed that 10 questions are related to loneliness positively and 10 questions negatively. Against each sentence based on main form there are 4 options never, rarely, sometimes and usually that each of then scored as rated such that score 1 is be conge to option Never the score 4 is be conge to option usually (in this) measure some quieting, are scored inversely).Based on this way of scoring, getting more scores in this measure is a sign of more of the feeling of loneliness in subject. The mining of school that subject can get is 20 and its maximum 80.
2- Questionnaire of Lonson (I, P, C)
This questionnaire is in the form of pencil and paper and includes 3 measurements and totally is 24 matters that focus on different roots of locus of control. In this questionnaire each measurement is regulated in the form of 6- degree of Likert and the scope of the answer to the question about each matter is from completely disagree up to completely agree that -1,-2,-3 in the disagree direction and +3,+2,+1 in the agree direction.Total score for each variable I,P,C is sum of scores of each subject in 8 months related to that second measure that is summed with 24 to remove its probably negative sign .So in each measurement the scope will be from 0 up to 48 .The high scores in each second measure is interpreted in this way that individual has high expectation of control by root considered.
The statistical method for analyzing data
Regarding to this fact that present research study the relationship and comparison the feeling of loneliness and locus of control( I,P,C )in the athletic and non athletic girls the kind of research is correlation. Software SPSS was used for analyzing data. First Smearnove Clomogroph test was used for determining natural or unnatural status of data distribution. Then Pearson correlation coefficient was used for study the relation between variables in both groups and t-test of independent two groups was used in order to study the difference between averages of variables. Meaningful level considered in this research is % 0.01.
The following figures show the variables average (feeling of loneliness, internal locus of control, external locus of control with tendency to chance and external locus of control source with tendency to powerful people) in both groups.
Table 1. Characteristic of the feeling of loneliness and locus of control (I, P, C) in both subject groups
Figure 1. Comparison of the feeling of loneliness in subjects
Figure 2. Comparison of average of internal locus of control in both groups
Figure 3. Comparison of external locus of control (tendency to chance) in subjects
Figure 4. Comparison of mean of external locus of control (tendency to powerful people) in subjects
Table 2. Results of t-test in both groups
Table 3. Correlation between feeling of loneliness and locus of control (internal-external) in both groups
After statistical analyzing data based on (Pearson correlation coefficient) and (t-test of independent two groups the following results were obtained:
• Meaningful difference was observed between the feeling of loneliness of athletic and non athletic girl (sig=0.000)
• Meaningful difference was observed between internal locus of control athletic and non athletic girls (sig=0.0000).
• Meaningful difference was observed between external locus of control(tendency to chance)of athletic and non athletic girls (sig=0.000).
• Meaningful difference was not observed between external locus f control(tendency to powerful people)of athletic and non athletic girls (sig=0.198).
• Meaningful relation was not observed between the feeling of loneliness and internal locus control of athletic girls (r=0.438).
• Meaningful relation wasn’t observed between the feeling of loneliness and external locus of control (tendency to chance) in athletic girls (r=0.295).
• Meaningful relation was not observed between the feeling of loneliness and external locus of control (tendency to chance) in athletic girls (r=0.295).
• Meaningful relation was not observed between the feeling of loneliness and external locus of control (tendency to powerful people) in athletic girls (r=0.379).
• Meaningful relation was not observed between the feeling of loneliness and internal locus of control of non athletic girls (r=-0.554).
• Meaningful relation was observed between the feeling of loneliness and external locus of control (tendency to chance)in non athletic girls (r=0.462).
• Meaningful relation was not observed between the feeling of loneliness and external locus of control(tendency to powerful people)in non athletic girls (r=0.155).
Sport environment have highest and more quality of experience for people in the youth period. The concept of "self" in this course is accompany with more mental and physical changes in the form of extremely and variety experience in this course can change "self" in different methods and direction. This change in "self" can create some personality features. Participating in sport activities can cause a good feeling in all aspects. Feeling that can increase the hope for social acceptance may be effective directly in equilibrium for mental personality of individual. So it can be said that sport is a mediate and factor for relation between individual with himself/herself and with others .This multiple aspect recognition can be involved in social and personal, in this respect relation of Clark and Harrison (1989) said: personality has a role in selecting and participating sport activities sport and is involved in the social and personal compatibility. The result of research data showed that there is a meaningful difference between athletic and non athletic girls in the light of the feline of loneliness. Therefore it can be said that physical activities and sports, especial if it be progressive and membership in group, it can reduce the individual's feeling of loneliness. The results related to (internal-external) locus of control between athletic and non athletic girls showed that there is a meaningful difference between two groups studied in the light of place of control in this form that locus of control of athletes are more internal than non athletes .it should be said that the results of descriptive statistic show that average of internal locus of control is higher than non athletes. Moore et al. (1981, 1987) believed that individuals who are more internal in the light of responsibility and know themselves as responsible of their life they less feel loneliness than others who believed that they have less control on their life. Takakura and Sakihara (2001) in their research that was done about the occurrence of depression in Japanese students found that this signs have negative relation with positive health practice and internal locus of control. Since depression can be a result of feeling of loneliness, it seemed that feeling of loneliness has negative relation with physical education and internal locus of control. So these results have conformity with result of this research. The obtained results show that there isn't any meaningful difference between athletic girls than non athletic girls. So it can be said that doing physical activity and participating in the sport environment can prevent or improve mental tension among feeling of loneliness. Also the results related to positive relation of feeling of loneliness with external locus of control (tendency to chance) in both groups show that individuals with external locus of control (tendency to chance) with this belief that they have less control on their life event and this events and even sometimes know their behavior under the effect of chance, fate and other belief. They resort to all kind of mental mechanisms such as anxious and indifference against different threatened situations. Regarding to the above results we can suggest that physical activity can have suitable effects on the individuals because sport and physical education can contribute to creating human relation and social responsibilities by creating rich social experience and train competition and as a training flow allow individual to gain mental and social skills.
