The Relationship between Mindfulness, Social Support and Athletic Engagement in College Athletes

The purpose of this study is to verify the direct effect between mindfulness, social support, and athletic engagement in college athletes and the mediating effect of social support. Accordingly, 432 university athletes were selected and data were collected. The collected data were subjected to descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, average variance extraction, conceptual reliability, and structural equation model analysis using PASW 23.0 and AMOS 23.0 programs, and bootstrapping techniques were used to verify the significance of the mediating effect. As a result, first, it was found that mindfulness of college athletes had a positive effect on social support. Second, it was found that social support had a positive effect on exercise engagement. Third, it was found that mindfulness had a positive effect on exercise engagement. Fourth, social support was found to have a positive partial mediating effect on the relationship between mindfulness and exercise engagement. These results mean that the higher the ability to accept current thoughts and emotions non-judgmentally and refocus, the more positively aware of the support for various resources supported by the surroundings, thereby strengthening the enthusiasm for exercise.