A Comparative Study of Social Intelligence and Psychological Well-Being Among Sports-Participating and Non-Sports-Participating Students

Abstract

Sports participation in higher education helps in the holistic growth of students and leads to development of interpersonal and psychological resources, but little is known about social intelligence in this context and how it relates to psychological well-being. To examine the relationship between social intelligence and psychological well-being and compare sports-participating and non-sports-participating students on social intelligence and psychological well-being. Forty students (20 per group) were recruited through purposive sampling and completed the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale and Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Scale. Because several distributions departed from normality, groups were compared with Mann-Whitney U tests, and associations were examined with Spearman's rank correlations. Linear regression was used as a supplementary analysis. Social information processing (ρ = .46) and social skills (ρ = .40) are positively correlated with well-being, whereas social awareness did not correlate (ρ = .25, p = .120). In regression analysis, social information processing was found to be the unique predictor of psychological well-being. Sports-participating and non-sports participating groups did not differ significantly in psychological well-being or in any dimension of social intelligence (p ≥ .057). Social intelligence, especially interpreting others' behavior and interacting skilfully, is linked to well-being across students, while sports participation alone may not confer an advantage. Programs that deliberately build social competence may benefit all students. Replication with larger samples is needed.