Does the self-control developed through boxing-training sparring correlate with happiness?

Abstract

Self-control predicts the quality of a person’s life experience through their personal relationships, how they perform at school, work, and athletics, and their own physical and mental health. Athletic competition enhances self-control skills; however, it is self-control during athletic competition, and its relationship to aggression, that motivates this study’s examination of self-control’s relationship with happiness. During athletic competition, aggression is categorized into hostile aggression and instrumental aggression; the former is to cause harm for the sake of causing harm, and the latter is to cause harm that assists in the pursuit of a goal during competition, aimed at leading towards victory. Boxing-training sparring challenges a person’s self-control and decision-making. Sparring often physically exhausts its participants, while they are being punched repetitively, yet having to make concurrent optimal decisions to prevent further physical pain while trying to inflict physical pain on their opponent. This study consisted of a control group (n = 38) and a study group (n = 35). Both cohorts had the same age inclusion criteria: 30-50 years. The differentiating factor between both groups was the number of years a participant used sparring as a routine form of exercise. The control group sparred less than one year, whereas the study group had sparred for a year or more. Happiness and Aggression served as this study’s Independent Variables, and Boxing-Training Sparring Self-Control served as this study’s Dependent Variable. The three hypotheses were tested: (1) boxing-training sparring positively correlates with happiness, (2) boxing-training sparring negatively correlates with aggressive behaviors, and (3) aggressive behaviors mediate the relationship between boxing-training sparring self-control and happiness. Both groups completed Happiness, Self-Control, and Aggression Questionnaires, and the study group completed an additional Boxing-Training Sparring Self-Control Questionnaire. This correlational study is a multivariate linear regression analysis measuring two independent variables, Happiness and Aggression, against one dependent variables, Boxing-Training Sparring Self-Control. BTSSCQ was followed up by open-ended questions to help arrive at themes that guide the Discussion section. To test Hypothesis 1, a One-Tailed Pearson correlation was conducted to test whether Melson-Pruned and Oxford had a positive relationship. There was no significant positive correlation between the two variables, r(31) = .277, p = .06. This correlation failed to support Hypothesis 1. The p-value here was cut in half because a One-Tailed analysis was conducted. The reasoning behind this was that this study’s first hypothesis stated a correlational direction. To test Hypothesis 2, a One-Tailed Pearson correlation was conducted to test whether Melson-Pruned and Buss-Perry had a negative relationship. There was no significant negative correlation between the two variables, r(30) = -.200, p = .136. This correlation failed to support Hypothesis 2. The multiple regression found that Oxford and Buss-Perry did not significantly predict Melson, F(2, 29) = 1.581, p = .223. Adding the interaction between Buss-Perry and Oxford in Model 2 did not significantly improve prediction of Melson-Pruned, ∆R2 = .085, ∆F(1, 28) = .035, p = .099. Because Model 1 was not significant and Model 2 was not a significant improvement, the coefficients will not be discussed (see Table 4). The regression failed to support Hypotheses 1, 2, or 3.