Relations between motivation for long-distance running and emotional well-being

Partic ipation in long-distance races such as a marathon, half, and mini-marathon has become increasingly popular in the last few years in Serbia, and the same trend is evident in a number of other countries. Why does an increasing number of people go beyond limits of ordinary recreation and jogging and participate in such a demanding activity? Data from 289 runners (54% male) who had completed at least one endurance running (ER) race, assessing their motivation (MOMS), positive and negative affect, and subjective well-being has been collected. After testing the original theoretical MOMS model using confirmatory factor analysis, recommendations for the scale and its latent structure were given and the relations between that latent structure and mental health outcomes were examined. Our results suggest that ER is more than physical recreation or competition. Coping with negative emotional states represents a significant reason for practicing ER. As such, it could be understood as a strategy for improvement in the emotional well-being domain, which is an essential component of overall mental-health, hence, the main underlying reason why a large number of people participates in such a physically demanding task.

of behavior is to gain benefits or avoid negative consequences that are expected to occur afterward (Buckworth, Lee, Regan, Schneider, & DiClemente, 2007).In the context of these two types of motives, ER is somewhere between.When it comes to participation in organized races, ER includes both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, because these activities involve personal achievement, enjoyment, competition, and a sense of belonging to the runners' community, at the same time (Bell, 2013).One of the most popular motivation theories when it comes to sport is the self-determination theory (SDT) by Deci and Ryan (2000).According to this approach, fulfillment of psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are essential in explanation of human motivation.Some studies imply the relation between STD and ER motivation.Running as an individual sport satisfies the need for autonomy, and the need for competence could be satisfied through personal efficiency and achieved goals (Newcomer, 2008).The need for relatedness could be satisfied though social affiliation with other runners (Bell, 2013).In the most recent study, authors provide support for STD premises about the underlying mechanism that drives long-distance runners using MOMS scale (Zach et al., 2017).

The Psychological Benefits of Running
Distance running was initially presented as an aid to achieving and maintaining physical health, but it was quickly upgraded as a means of improving mental health as well (Leedy, 2009).The psychological benefits of running are well known and many times confirmed in studies.For example, running may enhance self-esteem (Ames, 2013) and reduce daily stress (Esch & Stefano, 2010;Sharkey & Gaskill, 2007).People who are depressed can benefit from a regular aerobic exercise such as running.Exercise is no more effective than psychological or pharmacological therapies for reducing symptoms of depression, but it is helpful and more effective than other additional strategies (Conney et al., 2013).Physical activity as a complementary treatment for alcohol use disorders can improve comorbid health problems and may influence reducing heavy drinking (Hallgren, Vancampfort, Schuch, Lundin, & Stubbs, 2017).Exercise training offers a nonspecific psychological therapeutic tool for clients for whom a more conventional psychological intervention is less acceptable (Salmon, 2001).
There are much more studies about the relationship between mental health and physical activity in general, than there are specifically about running.Evidence about the relationship between regular physical activity and lower psychological distress are presented in population-based studies in several countries (Ten Have, de Graaf, & Monshouwer, 2011).However, not all physical exercises are associated with positive consequences in psychological functioning.Excessive exercising could be related to harmful effects.For example, compulsive exercise is associated with eating disorder pathology, perfectionism, neuroticism, narcissism, obsessive-compulsive traits, and consequences such as injuries, impaired social relations and depression (Lichtenstein, Hinze, Emborg, Thomsen, & Hemmingsen, 2017).Running could be seen as a form of "addiction" because of psychological withdrawal symptoms when the person is deprived of exercise for more than 24-36 hours, or when the person neglects work, home, and family responsibilities or runs even with injuries (Sancho & Ruiz-Juan, 2011).
PSIHOLOGIJA, 2019, Vol.52(2), 139-154 Psychological benefits of running could be explained in the context of subjective vitality which is defined as the positive feeling of aliveness and energy (Ryan & Frederick, 1997).It means more than being active and aroused and includes psychological experiences of enthusiasm, sense of agency, selfactualization, and personal well-being.Subjective vitality is negatively related to depression and anxiety and positively associated with psychological well-being and life satisfaction.One of the most crucial questions of this research is the relation of psychological well-being to the motivation for ER.Which kind of motivation results in psychological well-being indicators?In this research, we are specifically interested in the relationship between ER, and emotional well-being as an essential component of overall mental health.We defined emotional wellbeing as it is proposed in American Mental Health Foundation 4 , as the positive sense of well-being which enables an individual to be functional in society and meet the demands of everyday life.According to this definition, people with good mental health can efficiently recover from illness, change, or misfortune.Emotional well-being could be enhanced by an experience of balance of positive and negative emotions, which contributes to feelings of life satisfaction (Kuppens, Realo, & Diener, 2008).Moreover, the experience of positive emotions is not only "feeling good" in the present, but also an increase in the likelihood that one will feel good in the future and this triggers and upward spirals toward enhanced emotional well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002).Emotional well-being is an essential component of mental health (Longo, Jovanović, de Carvalho, & Karas, 2017).A broader psychological construct associated with mental health is subjective well-being, which, with the assessment of one's emotional state, consists of evaluation and satisfaction with one's own life (Diener & Chan, 2011).Subjective well-being consists of three distinct but often related components: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and life satisfaction (Busseri & Sadava, 2011).The frequency of experiencing positive and negative emotions constitutes the affective component of the construct of subjective well-being, but the cognitive component which refers to the satisfaction with one's own life is also important for mental health (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999).
The above-mentioned studies served as a starting point to assess the motivation of Serbian long-distance runners and examine its relationship with emotional wellbeing indicators such as positive and negative affectivity and subjective well-being.Our first objective was to evaluate the nine-first-order factor solution of motivation proposed by Maters et al. (1993), using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Based on these results, recommendations for the scale and its latent structure were given, and further examined.Finally, our aim was to provide information on the relationship of MOMS (Maters et al., 1993) with mental health indicators.

Method Participants
The final sample consisted of 289 participants (54% male), mean aged 36.65 years (SD = 9.31).Participants filled out online questionnaires in the Serbian language.The inclusion criterion required that participant had already completed at least one ER race (mini-marathon, half-marathon, or marathon).Average participants` experience of running was 4.97 years (SD = 6.55).Distribution of participants according to their experience of running showed that almost a half of participants (40.8 %) were running less than three years.Less than a 10 % had more than ten years of experience in ER races.In this sample, the marathon was run 72 times, half-marathon was run 80 times, and mini-marathon was run 380 times.A total of 25% respondents participated in all three types of races, 46% respondents participated in 2 types of races, while 29% respondents were engaged in only one kind of long-distance race.
Considering that we are dealing with ER as a recreational activity based on voluntary participation in massive races with several thousand runners, very often on an international level, there is no clear statistical data on the number and demographic characteristics of the typical ER runners in our country.The sample in this research is a convenient one because it refers to a portion of the long runners' population that was able to participate in the study electronically (online).

Instruments Motivation of Marathoners Scale (MOMS; Maters et al., 1993).
The scale was used for measuring motives of long-distance running.The original instrument consists of 56 items or specific reasons for running the marathon with 7-point Likert scale (1 = not a reason, 7 = very important reason).We added one new reason (item) to the original instrument: "To get a medal."The scale was translated from English to Serbian using back translation procedure with two independent translators.

Serbian Inventory of Affect based on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-X (SIAB-PANAS; Novović & Mihić, 2008). It is a Serbian translation and adaptation of the
Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-X (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1994).In this study, a short version of the questionnaire consisting of 20 items, was used to assess states of positive and negative affectivity as dispositional traits.
The Short Subjective Well-Being Scale (Jovanović, 2010).The scale was used for assessment of participants' subjective well-being.It consists of 8 items asking about the experience of pleasant emotions and positive evaluation of life.Accordingly, the instrument consists of two dimensions: Positive affectivity and Positive attitude toward life.The response format is 5-point Likert scale.In this study, we used the total scale score as an assessment of subjective well-being.

Data Collection Procedure
This was an internet-based study and participants were recruited through an online portal that deals with sports and running as a basic topic (https://www.trcanje.rs/).Users of this portal could access the online questionnaire, and this was also the case with other runners who were recruited through sports clubs and organizers of local running events.The sample was collected from June to October 2017.

Results
The Latent Structure of MOMS Questionnaire on the Serbian Sample Confirmatory factor analysis.As the factorial structure of the original instrument recently appeared to be unstable (Zach et al., 2017), we first tested the original theoretical model provided by Masters, Ogles, and Jolton (1993).The original 56 items of the MOMS scale were analyzed via hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis using the Amos Graphics software package (Arbuckle, 1997), where it was required that each item is placed on one of the nine latent factors corresponding to four higher order factors: psychological, social, physical motives, and achievement.
The model revealed unsatisfying fit indicators.The overall CMIN/DF value is 3.082 (p < .05),which is above the recommended value of 3, indicating an unacceptable fit.In line with this, other goodness-of-fit indices (CFI = .71,NFI = .62,and RMSEA = .082-.088) also suggest that the proposed nine-factor CFA model of MOMS is not a good representation of the current data.Hence, we further examined the best factorial solution using the exploratory factor analysis.
Exploratory factor analysis.To further examine the latent structure of MOMS scale, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (SPSS 21.0) was used.Kaisere-Meyere-Olkin test indicated very good sampling adequacy (KMO = .90).In the initial analysis, we discarded items with loadings lower than .40,and also items with cross-loadings.After this process, 42 items remained in the final analysis.Latent factors were extracted by principal components analysis, and the optimal number of factors was determined by the parallel analysis with 95% percentile criterion (O'Connor, 2000).This criterion suggested a six-factor solution, which explained 60.46 % of the variance (Table 1).Extracted factors were rotated by using the Promax rotation.The pattern matrix of extracted factors is presented in Table 2.The first factor is saturated with items that are directed toward overall mental health and reduction of negative emotional states, mostly depressive and anxious, and their cognitive manifestation (sense of meaning in life, self-worth, etc.)This factor was named Mental Health Improvement.The content of the second factor describes stress coping and strategies used to reduce the effects of daily hassles.The factor was interpreted as Stress Coping.Items of the third factor describe the social dimension of running, meeting with other people and sharing group identity.It is named Affiliation.The fourth factor was named Physical Health and Condition because it mostly describes this kind of motivation.Items of the fifth factor describe the spirit of competition and moving personal limits, so we named it Competitive Spirit.The content of the sixth factor describes persons who want to improve or maintain their physical appearance and control their weight.It is named Physical Appearance.
Extracted factors have low to moderate intercorrelations (Table 3).The highest correlation is between Mental Health Improvement and Stress Coping.Internal consistency of factors ranges between .80 (for Physical Health and Condition) and .92(for Mental Health Improvement).Gender and age differences.The analysis of gender differences revealed significant differences on three factors: Mental Health Improvement, Physical Health and Condition, and Competitive Spirit.Namely, women scored higher on both Mental Health Improvement (t = -2.41,p < .05,d = .29)and Physical Health and Condition (t = -3.03,p < .05,d = .36),while men scored significantly higher on the Competitive Spirit factor (t = 4.86, p < .05,d = .59).
Similarly, we examined age differences related to a different kind of motives for ER.Using the median value (Mdn = 36), we divided our sample in two groups according to their age range -younger (n = 140, age range: 14-35) and older participants (n = 145, age range: 36-70).Significant differences were found again for factors Mental Health Improvement (t = 2.09, p < .05,d = .25)and Physical Health and Condition (t = 2.28, p < .05,d = .27),as well as for factor Physical Appearance (t = 3.18, p < .05,d = .08),however, with very small effects.All three factors are more pronounced in the younger age group.

Motivation for Running and Emotional Well-being Outcomes
Table 4 shows descriptive characteristics of continuous variables in the study.All variables show satisfactory reliability, and values of skewness and kurtosis suggested that the deviation of data from normality was not severe and fulfill the basic conditions for the implementation of the further data analyzes.According to these results, the most prominent motivational factor for ER running in overall sample is Mental Health Improvement (z = 1.12), followed by Affiliation (z = 1.03) and Stress Coping (z = .99).Also, we analyzed the intensity of different kinds of motives in groups of respondents who participated in different types of ER races (mini marathon, half marathon, and marathon).The strongest motivational factor for participants, regardless of the types of ER races they participated in, was reported to be Mental Health Improvement (one type of ER races: M = 50.59,SD = 16.39;two types of ER races: M = 49.40,SD = 16.57;three types of ER races: M = 49.24,SD = 17.63).
To examine how different ER motives predict mental health variables, we conducted a multiple regression analysis.Predictor variables included extracted factors of the MOMS scale, and criterion variables were positive and negative affectivity, as well as subjective well-being.Results are shown in Table 5.We used Bonferroni's adjustment to determine the highest level of statistical significance, which was p < .005.As we can see, all regression models are statistically significant (R² between .13 and .23,p ≤ .001).Mental Health Improvement as a source of motivation was negatively related to Positive Affect (ß = -.31,p ≤ .001)and Subjective Well-Being (ß = -.36,p ≤ .001),and positively related to Negative Affect (ß = .36,p ≤ .001).On the other hand, Stress Coping (ß = .20,p ≤ .005),Affiliation (ß = .23,p ≤ .001),and Physical Health and Conditioning (ß = .33,p ≤ .001)positively contributed to Positive Affect.In case of Subjective Well-Being as a criterion variable, Physical Health and Condition (ß = .43,p ≤ .001) was also a significant predictor.Furthermore, Affiliation (ß = -.21,p ≤ .005)and Physical Health and Condition (ß = -.22,p ≤ .005),negatively contributed to Negative Affect.Competitive Spirit and Physical Appearance have no significant contribution to the prediction of mental health variables.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the structure of motivation for ER and its relation to emotional well-being outcomes, in a Serbian sample.In other words, we tried to explain ER motivation in the context of its psychological benefits.Considering that the MOMS is used in the Serbian speaking area for the first time (to our knowledge), we first examined its factorial structure.As we failed to confirm the originally proposed higher-order factor model, we further examined the latent structure of MOMS.Extracted factors were then related to emotional well-being outcomes: positive and negative affectivity and subjective well-being.
The original MOMS instrument included four conceptual dimensions, psychological, social, physical, and achievement motives.Although one dimension is purely psychological, others can be connected to psychological benefits, as well.Based on self-report measures of emotions, natural environment in physical activities, such as walking and running, could have more positive effects than similar activities in a synthetic environment (Bowler, Buying-Ali, Knight, & Pullin, 2010).Six dimensions were extracted in our research and named: Mental Health Improvement, Stress Coping, Affiliation, Physical Health and Condition, Competitive Spirit, and Physical Appearance.
The strongest motivational factor for ER running in this study was reported to be Mental Health Improvement.This factor refers to items that deal with emotional states such as depression, anxiety, and related questions of self-worth.An excessively low or high evaluation of self-worth is associated with different psychological disturbances, especially with anxiety and depression (Popov, Radanović, & Biro, 2016).People with this kind of motivation for participating in ER are likely to experience a higher level of negative affect, which is confirmed by the results of this study.Mental Health Improvement is positively associated with Negative Affect and negatively associated with Positive Affect and Subjective Well-Being.Affect depends on the personality traits to a significant extent, specifically those related to temperament-biologically based disposition for an emotional reactivity (Watson & Clark, 1994).Negative affect represents a dispositional tendency to be distressed and upset, and to have a negative view of oneself over time and across situations (Barsade & Gibson, 2007).Also, negative affect is considered to be a vulnerability factor for depressive and anxiety symptoms (Iqbal & Dar, 2015).Several studies found that ER may be effective in improving mental health (Biddle & Mutrie, 2007;Brosse, Sheets, Lett, & Blumenthal, 2002), as well as a therapeutic intervention for depression (Faulkner & Biddle, 2004).The results of this study suggest that coping with negative emotional states represents an important reason for practicing ER.
In our sample, Stress Coping is among the most important motives for long distance running.Stress Coping refers to items that deal with strategies for overcoming daily hassles and returning body and mind balance.Accordingly, Stress Coping positively predicted Positive Affect supporting the idea that ER could be a constructive strategy for overcoming stress (Leedy, 2009;Smith & Ascough, 2016).A similar pattern with mental health variables was found for Physical Health and Condition as a predictor in this study -while it predicted Positive affect and Subjective Well-Being in a positive direction, Negative Affect was predicted in a negative direction.The dimension of Physical Health and Condition was after items related to improvement or maintenance of health and physical condition.Many studies have confirmed that taking care of physical health and a healthy lifestyle produce multiple psychological benefits and contribute to the general well-being (e.g., Walsh, 2011).Exercise reduces the risk of multiple disorders, including cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (Khaw et al., 2008;Ornish et al., 2008), and also offers preventive and therapeutic psychological benefits for many psychological problems (Sidhu, Vandana, & Balon, 2009).Cross-sectional and prospective studies show that exercise can reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disorders such as age-related cognitive decline, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease (Hamer & Chida, 2009;Sui et al., 2009).
Affiliation is the dimension which refers to social motives and connection with other runners.In our study, it turned out to be the second most prominent motive for ER running after coping with negative emotions.Affiliation appeared to be a strong predictor for both, Positive Affect and Negative Affect, but in opposite directions, which means that, when present, this kind of motivation results in positive mental health outcomes.It is commonplace in psychological science that social relationships and affiliation have positive effects on physical and mental health.The need for affiliation describes a person's need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging to a social group (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2008).People are inherently driven by the need to form and maintain relationships, and these affiliation goals can influence health behaviors by engaging in activities instrumental to fulfillment of these needs (Cullum, O'Grady, & Tennen, 2011).
Two more factors were extracted in this study.Competitive Spirit refers to items about contest and comparison to others, while Physical Appearance includes items about weight control and attractiveness.These dimensions were not related to emotional-well-being indicators in this study.Despite expectations, these dimensions are not related to affectivity and subjective well-being.As mentioned earlier, ER is motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic motives.According to our results, that means ER is associated with intrinsic (emotional well-being) and "deeper" extrinsic motivation such as affiliation, but not with the most obvious extrinsic gratification such as winning a race or a better physical appearance.
To better understand the motivation for long-distance running, we examined whether it differs in runners of different gender and age.Results showed that women scored higher on Mental Health Improvement and Physical Health and Condition in comparison to men who scored significantly higher on the Competitive Spirit factor.When it comes to age differences, younger group of participants (age range: 14-35) scored higher on Mental Health Improvement, Physical Health and Condition and Physical Appearance.
The main advantage of this research is that it represents the first study about the relationship between ER motivation and emotional and subjective well-being in the Serbian speaking area.Both in the world and in the region, participation in ER events is becoming very popular, and this study contributes to understanding the causes of this phenomenon.The limitation of this study is reflected in the fact that it is based on self-assessment data and that it was conducted on a sample of online respondents.

Table 1
Extracted principal components with Eigenvalues, percentage of explained variance, and parallel analysis criterion

Table 4
Descriptive statistics for variables in the study

Table 4
also shows the z values of scores on extracted factors of MOMS questionnaire.