ABSTRACT

There are concerns that the field of sport and exercise psychology is limited by insufficient consideration for the demographic, socioeconomic and cultural identities and experiences of participants. This study specifically quantified gender balance among sport and exercise psychology samples for the very first time. Articles published within five leading journals in the field across three separate years (2010, 2015, 2020) were included. Across the 627 studies, data were collected from 258,160 participants. Of these, 138,133 were men/boys (54%), 119,398 were women/girls (46%), and 629 were non-binary or not reported (0.2%; 432 not reported, 197 identified as non-binary or another gender). We demonstrated that studies which focused on sport – rather than exercise – psychology, significantly under-represented women/girls. Specifically, the OR for sport as compared to exercise, was 4.94 (95% CI = 3.19–7.64, p < .001), suggesting a markedly increased likelihood of male participation. Nearly one in five studies in sport psychology included exclusively male participants, compared to just 7% with females. Studies conducted in Europe, as well as those exploring interventions and experimental research, were also associated with an over-representation of male participants. Important questions are raised as to the conduct of representative research in the field of applied sport psychology, with recommendations provided.

摘要

人们担心运动和运动心理学领域因对参与者的人口统计、社会经济和文化身份和经历考虑不足而受到限制。这项研究首次专门量化了运动和运动心理学样本中的性别平衡。包括在三个不同年份（2010 年、2015 年、2020 年）在该领域的五种主要期刊上发表的文章。在 627 项研究中，数据收集自 258,160 名参与者。其中，138,133 人为男性/男孩 (54%)，119,398 人为女性/女孩 (46%)，629 人为非二元性别或未报告（0.2%；432 人未报告，197 人确定为非二元性别或其他性别） . 我们证明，侧重于运动（而非锻炼）心理学的研究中，女性/女孩的比例明显不足。具体来说，p  < .001)，表明男性参与的可能性显着增加。近五分之一的运动心理学研究仅包括男性参与者，而女性参与者仅为 7%。在欧洲进行的研究，以及那些探索干预和实验研究的研究，也与男性参与者过多有关。提出了关于在应用运动心理学领域进行代表性研究的重要问题，并提供了建议。