Is it possible to enhance the physical self-concept of university students’ using a cognitive intervention?

Abstract

The interest raised during the last decade about the factors involved in the personal well-being has shown the positive relation between life satisfaction and physical self-concept. Improving the physical self-perception of people, especially during adolescence and youth, would contribute both to their physical and mental health, and therefore, boost their life satisfaction. Despite, there is a lack of intervention proposals which, from a multidimensional and cognitive approach, try to improve the physical self-concept of young people. This study presents and evaluates a program of those features, implemented with 171 university students (112 in the experimental group, mean age 20.00 years, SD = 3.36; and 59 students in the control group, mean age 20.10 years; SD = 3.44). After the completion of the program, no statistically significant differences are found in the physical self-concept scores of the experimental group. Nonetheless, those results suppose relevant information in order to identify the more effective characteristics which future intervention designs should consider to booster their efficacy.