SPORTS SCIENCE

Literature Review

Literature Review

Impact of Wilderness Expedition on Student's Self-Esteem

There has been previous research into expeditions which found evidence showing expeditions do have an impact on some of the psychological constructs, but until the present study, there has been no research conducted into why these changes occur. The present study will be focusing on the impact of a wilderness expedition upon the psychological constructs of various students; the study will be concentrating specifically upon the construct of self esteem.

It has been established that self esteem is a multi-dimensional and dynamic concept (Bass, 1985), and that by increasing a persons self esteem you can positively influence some of their other psychological constructs. Therefore you can see that self esteem is a very important topic of research, potentially by increasing a persons self esteem you will be increasing the regard they hold for themselves, the intervention could literally change their lives for the better, our study will be looking into what impact the expeditions may be having on the students self esteem.

The literature tells us that healthy self-esteem has been associated with internal control, perceptions of competence, persistence in the face of challenges, coping skills, social support, and a variety of other qualities (Donnellan, Trzeniewski, Conger, & Conger 2007). This shows us the potential impact that self esteem could have, improving a person's self esteem is a very desirable objective, and therefore the main aim of the study is to establish what we can do to significantly increase a person's self esteem.

It has been established that participation on an expedition will have a considerable effect on the participants (e.g. Marsh, Richards & Barnes, 1986). However this research was conducted to asses whether there was a relationship, and not why these constructs have been impacted. Watts, Webster, Morley & Cohen (1992) study looked into expedition stress and personality change, the study found that five scales measured on the Gordon Personal Profile Inventory (GPP-1) had shown significant effect. There was a significant increase found in ascendancy, emotional stability, sociability, responsibility and a decrease in cautiousness. Our proposed study will look further into what happens on these expeditions to impact this positive response on self esteem. To do this we will be focusing our study on the effect that transformational leadership and group cohesion may be having.

Early research into transformational leadership (Bass, 1985) established that transformational is a style of leadership by where leaders can inspire their followers and build confidence, as mentioned previously it is a multi-dimensional and dynamic concept. Samir, House & Arthur, 1993 found that transformational leaders transform the self-concepts of their follower, by building personal and social identification among followers with the mission and goals of the leader and organisation. This explains what transformational leaders do, but not how transformational leadership works, transformational leadership involves the building of relationships with followers based on personal, emotional and inspirational exchanges with the goal of developing followers to their fullest (Burns, ...