Valores posmodernos y motivación hacia el ocio y el ejercicio físico en usuarios de centros deportivos

This paper presents an exploratory study on the postmaterialist tendency and practice of sports centre users. The paper is based on the Inglehart framework about postmaterialist cultural change and the self-determination theory proposed by Deci and Ryan. The aim of this study was to explore the possible differences between materialist and postmaterialist centre users on their motivation toward leisure and exercise. 531 sports centre users aged between 16 and 60 answered different questionnaires measuring their materialist-postmaterialist values and types of motivation towards leisure activities and exercise. Correlational analysis between variables showed that the postmaterialist index was negatively related to the non self-determined extrinsic motivation regarding the leisure variable, and to the introjected regulation and amotivation regarding exercise. The findings of the t student analysis (materialist and postmaterialist) indicated that the users who had the highest score in the materialist values showed lower self-determined motivation towards the leisure activities and exercise than the users who reported the highest posmaterialist values. The results are discussed from the existing connections between social structures and the decisions and actions that people can make in their specific scope in life. Specifically, the paper discusses the possible connections between the social values that a person holds and the form their leisure activity takes, in general, and their exercise, as a specific field in their life.