We examined structural relationships between physical education students' social support and social self-esteem, depression, and happiness. Participants (N = 311) completed measures of perceived social support from parents, professors, and peers, and of the students' levels of depression, happiness, and self-esteem. Results showed that parents', professors', and peers' social support were significant antecedent variables that increased the students' self-esteem, that parents' and professors' social support were associated with lower depression, and that high self-esteem was associated with greater happiness and lower depression. The latter association, however, was not significant. Results indicated that social support and high self-esteem are useful resources that help college students live happy lives by promoting positive emotions.

Family types in Asian countries are rapidly changing as the society is changing. Thus, in this study, we analyzed and compared how the newly evolving family types (multicultural/dual-income) affect adolescents’ online game addiction, delinquency, and online gaming (eSports) participation motivation. Multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the causal relationships between the variables, and multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variance were performed for comparative analyses. The results indicate that adolescents from dual-income families scored significantly higher on all factors related to juvenile delinquency and addiction factors (“salience”, “tolerance” and “withdrawal”). Additionally, adolescents from multicultural families revealed significantly higher scores on an addiction factor, “mood modification”. Lastly, adolescents in dual-income families were motivated to play online games to pass the time, and adolescents in multicultural families play online games to engage in social interaction. Results of this study may provide the answers required to help address societal issues related to adolescents in a changing society.

This study focused on empirically analyzing sport activity participants’ perceptions of hypochondriasis caused by fear of infection and changes in continuous participatory behavior patterns. To this end, a comparative analysis was conducted with a focus on the forms of participation and age of sport activity participants. For the final comparative analysis, a 2 × 3 factorial multivariate analysis of variance was conducted after confirming the validity and reliability of data based on 229 questionnaires collected from healthy respondents who have never been infected with COVID-19. The results showed statistically significant differences between worry about illness, which is a subscale of hypochondriasis, disease phobia, thanatophobia, and intent to continue according to age. Statistically significant differences were also found when considering the type of sport for worry about illness, which is a subscale of hypochondriasis, disease phobia, symptom preoccupation, and intent to continue. Furthermore, interaction effects between the two independent variables, i.e., age and type of sport, were found for disease phobia, a subscale of hypochondriasis, and thanatophobia. In summary, age and type of sport, which are important factors for the COVID-19 infection and symptoms, were found to affect the sport activity patterns. These results proved that COVID-19 may have caused the participants to have different perceptions depending on their characteristics and change their form of continuous participation. These findings will provide useful data for predicting the perception and behavioral patterns of sports participants if diseases like COVID-19 occur in the future. They also show how to live a healthy life through exercise.

The advanced technology of virtual reality (VR) has brought about significant changes in our society, and leisure sports are no exception. The purpose of this study was to assess how leisure satisfaction with leisure sports and degree of sustainable participation affect men and women in actual sports and virtual reality (VR) sports. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to confirm scale validity and reliability, and multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression were conducted for comparative analysis and linear relationships between variances. The results showed that while men typically participate in ‘masculine’ sports and women in ‘feminine’ sports, both genders equally enjoy the same types of VR sports. In terms of gender differences, female VR sport participants placed importance on educational leisure satisfaction and the intent of sustainable participation. Interestingly, there were no significant differences in the physical, psychological, or social leisure satisfaction factors, indicating no differences in satisfaction between performing actual sports and those in the VR environment. In addition, all factors except relaxation factor, had a positive impact on intent of sustainable participation. This study implied that VR sports offer an opportunity for people to be together, regardless of gender, and that it is becoming a part of healthy leisure sports culture.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Korean junior golf coaches’ leadership styles affect athletes’ competitive state anxiety before a game as well as their performance. In the Multidimensional Model of Leadership (MML), Chelladurai and Saleh (1980) identified five aspects of leadership behavior in coaching: training/instruction, democratic behavior, autocratic behavior, social support, and positive feedback. A survey was conducted with junior golfers participating in the 23rd Korean National Middle and High School Championship. Data from 216 questionnaires were used in the analysis. Multiple regression analyses were run on the data, revealing the following results. First, training/instruction and social support of coaches decreased cognitive anxiety before the game, whereas autocratic behavior increased it. Second, training/instruction and positive feedback of coaches increased self-confidence before the game. Third, training/instruction of coaches increased golf performance, whereas autocratic behavior decreased it. Finally, cognitive anxiety of golf athletes was found to reduce golf performance, whereas self-confidence increased it. Consequently, this study may deliver sport administrators and parents with understanding of how coaches’ leadership styles could influence on junior golfers’ psychological state and golf performance.