ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Movement Science
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1662636
The Impact of Social Support on the Quality of Sports Participation among Individuals with Disabilities: The Chain Mediating Effects of Psychological Capital and Self-Esteem
Provisionally accepted
- 1Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China
- 2Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
- 3Shandong University, Jinan, China
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Methods: Employing a stratified random sampling method, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted with 632 individuals with disabilities across 12 cities in 6 provinces spanning Eastern, Central, and Western China. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. The bias-corrected bootstrap method (5000 resamples) was utilized to test the chain mediating effects. Results: (1) Social support significantly and positively predicted the quality of sports participation among individuals with disabilities (Total effect = 0.786, 95% CI [0.680, 0.891]), with the direct effect accounting for 49.87%. (2) Both psychological capital (β = 0.478) and self-esteem (β = 0.154) independently and positively predicted the quality of sports participation. (3) The total mediating effect of psychological capital and self-esteem was significant (Effect = 0.394, 95% CI [0.313, 0.484]), accounting for 50.13% of the total effect. Among the specific paths, "Social Support → Psychological Capital → Quality of Sports Participation" contributed the most (Effect = 0.294, Proportion = 37.41%). The chain path "Social Support → Psychological Capital → Self-Esteem → Quality of Sports Participation" was also significant (Effect = 0.025, Proportion = 3.18%). Conclusion: Social support not only directly enhances the quality of sports participation among individuals with disabilities but also facilitates a transformation from external empowerment to internal drive through the chain psychological mechanism of "Psychological Capital → Self-Esteem". Theoretically, this study verifies the hierarchical progressive effect of positive psychological resources within the "Environment-Cognition-Behavior" pathway, deepening the psychological dynamic model of sports participation for individuals with disabilities. Practically, it suggests that improving participation quality requires the simultaneous construction of a multi-level social support network and the development of targeted integrated intervention programs focusing on psychological capital and self-esteem, to achieve a synergistic leap from participation "quantity" to experiential "quality".
Keywords: social support, Individuals with disabilities, Quality of Sports Participation, Psychological Capital, self-esteem, Chain mediating effect
Received: 18 Jul 2025; Accepted: 22 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Peng, Cao, Li and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jiahui Peng, pjh2016@qfnu.edu.cn
Li Cao, sjhcl@126.com
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