The Effect of Sporting Habits and Different Variables on Self-Esteem of Police Officers

Abstract

Having low or high self-esteem is considered to have an effect on one's attitude to wards himself or her self as well as to wards other individuals in the society. The refore, it is importantto determine the factors that improve individuals' self-esteem. Considering that the quality of education obtained by an individual has an impact on self-esteem, it is imperative to pointout what factors in the education process boostone's self-esteem and to execute such factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of sporting activities on self-esteem of police officers with respect to different variables. The total of 266 police officers, 32 female and 234 male, who serve in the City of Erzurum in Turkey participated in this survey. Scale of Self Esteem, developed by Kuzgun (2005), was used in order to gather data. T test and variance analysis were utilized as well. The difference among the groups' choices is evaluated based on P 0.05 significancelevel. Based on the evaluation of the survey results, no difference among police officers was observed in terms of average self-esteem with respect to gender and sporting habits, where as, a difference was observed in terms of average self-esteem with respect to the type of sport performed. Those who perform individual sportst end to have higher self-esteem compared to those who perform team sports or no sport at all. Since, having police officers with high self-esteem serve and interact with individuals will have a positive effect on social interactions in the society. It is imperative to provide opportunities and encoruge policeofficers to do individual sports and to further study the factors that may help increase the self-esteem of such individuals.