Abstract
The aim of this doctoral research was to examine the relationships between self-perceptions, achievement motivation and physical activity in aging. A first study, that was conducted according to a dynamical perspective (Ninot et al., 2004), showed that elderly person's self-esteem and physical self perceptions displayed lower levels, higher instability than young adults', but a non-stationary time series. The lability of self perceptions being so evidenced, a second study showed that an intervention based on adapted physical activities conducted in institutes for elderly persons entailed among these people positive changes in their global self-esteem as well as in their perceptions of physical value, physical appearance, and sport competency. Given that self-esteem is contingent on the extent to which one achieves specific goals (e.g., Wolfe & Crocker, 2002), the next two studies consisted of validating a French Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport and Exercise (FAGQSE; Riou et al., 2012) that takes into account the Elliot and Murayama's (2008) recent conceptual evolvements of the four-goal framework. The creation of this instrument then enabled, in a fifth study, the demonstration that carrying out an intervention based on a mastery motivational climate entails a reduction of the institutionalized elderly persons' involvement in mastery-avoidance goals, a kind of goal that is considered a maladaptive response to the threat that people perceive when facing up to their own capabilities decline (Elliot, 2005). Finally, a sixth study showed that a combination of specific properties of achievement goals that were identified by Gernigon and his collaborators (Gernigon, 2013; Gernigon et al., 2012) predicted elderly persons' involvement in physical activities. To conclude, this examination of the social-psychological factors of involvement in physical activities led to the identification of the respective roles of self-esteem, physical self perceptions, and achievement motivation in elderly persons' involvement in physically active behaviors. We showed that the supervised practice of adapted physical activities may activate a process of re-engagement in active behaviors and may be the starting point of a reversal in deconditioning (Préfaut & Ninot, 2009).