The Effect of Spiritual Health on University Athlete Students’ Sportsmanship with the Mediating Role of Aggression

The present study was aimed at investigating the effect of spiritual health on university athlete students’ sportsmanship with the mediation of aggressiveness. The study employed a descriptive-correlational research method. The population consisted of athletic students of Jahrom universities. 148 people were selected according to Morgan’s table and via a stratified random sampling technique. The Spiritual Health Questionnaire (Palutzian & Ellison, 1982), the Multidimensional Sportsmanship Orientations Scale (Vallerand, et al., 1997), and Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992) were employed to collect data. To test the hypotheses, SEM was used by Smart PLS software. The results showed that the spiritual health of athlete students can enhance their sportsmanship, while reducing their aggression although the mediating role of aggression in research model was not confirmed. Therefore, it is suggested that religious and spiritual programs should be considered as variables of exercise coaching to promote moral health in sport and avoid aggression.