Yulia Davydova’s research while affiliated with Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and other places

The study aims to reveal factors facilitating healthy lifestyle of modern students. This article presents the findings obtained in the case study “Our health” carried out in Moscow bi-region in October 2019. A group of researchers from Plekhanov Russian University of Economics surveyed students using online questionnaire method (N=2600). According to the findings, the widely-recognized health promotion activities are regular exercise, Sport classes at university, mental exercise, walks in the fresh air, listening to music. Some unconventional activities, for instance, walking upstairs, dancing and spending time on a hobby, also gained approval. The respondents showed little concern with oriental health-promoting activities and healing methods. Basically, most students prefer dynamic exercise to static one. Young adults rarely visit doctors or use medication. The respondents are not concerned much about their mental health, and thus, rarely apply for professional psychological help. The majority of the respondents value long and steady relations and speak against casual sexual relations, which proves their awareness on sexually transmitted disease prevention. In conclusion, we need to draw attention to certain discrepancy between intended value-based orientation towards healthy lifestyle and its translation into action.

Introduction. Achieving high performance in sport is important for various actors – sportsmen, coaches, sports club, city, country. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the factors influencing sportsman’s success. The purpose of the study is exploring the sportsman’s leadership potential as a variable influencing the sportive performance and the athlete’s position in the system of socio-group relations. Materials and methods. The empirical study involved sportsmen of Moscow and Moscow region of both sexes, aged 15 to 21, in the following individual sports: track and field athletics, gymnastics and tennis (N=168). The following methodologies were used: Diagnostics of leadership ability (E. Zharikov, E. Krushelnitsky); Goal achievement motivation test (T. Ehlers); Volitional qualities self-rating by university athletes (N.E. Stambulova); elements of T. Leary’s Diagnostic technique for interpersonal relationships; methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis, descriptive statistics methods, Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Results. The research showed that the group with low performance in sports activities included people prone to dictate (10%), while there are none of them in the group with high performance. Moreover, the low sportive performance group had power dictators (7%), while the high performance group had none of them. This may prevent a sportsman from adequately perceiving the coach’s comments and improving his/her skills. It was revealed that athletes with moderately pronounced leadership qualities prevail in the high performance group. It is shown that all of the three groups showed a moderately high level of motivation for success for the most part. However 4% of the respondents in the group with high sporting performance showed a high level of motivation for success, and 14% showed the same in the group with low performance. This confirms that too high motivation for success does not lead necessarily to sportsman’s high performance. It was revealed that the high-performance sportsmen group demonstrated pronouncedly such qualities as determination, courage and firmness. Direct positive connection between leadership ability and purposefulness, self-control and self-restraint was revealed on the basis of the correlation analysis. Conclusions. It was empirically found that the development of athlete’s leadership potential requires working on improvement of one’s personal qualities and motivational sphere, namely developing motivation to success and such volitional qualities as determination, self-control and endurance.