A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PHYSICAL SELF-CONCEPT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

The purpose of this study is to examine the notion of physical self-concept and its constituents across the life span, to find out whether the evaluations of the scales are correlated with each other, and to underscore the main statistical differences of the results obtained according to the age and gender of the respondents. The cross section is made up of 152 participants divided into three age groups (teenagers, adults and people over 50) who all answered the Physical Self-Concept Questionnaire (Cuestionario de Autoconcepto Fisico - CAF-Goni, Ruiz de Azua and Rodriguez, 2006). The data collected were examined through the analysis of the average scores, correlations, and variances for the different selected scales. The overall results show that the General Physical Self-Concept gradually improves with age. We observed positive correlations (p < .01) among all the scales of the instrument employed. In the male group we do not appreciate major differences in the evaluations of the constituents of the physical self-concept according to the different age groups. However, in the female group we perceive more significant differences in the sub-scales of Physical Ability and Strength (p < .05). The regression analysis performed indicates that the subscale that most predicts the General Physical Self-concept is Physical Attractiveness, Physical Ability, Fitness followed and Strength.