Adjustment is the dynamic process by which organisms meet their needs

Adjustment is the dynamic process by which organisms meet their needs. Physical education and related activities satisfy many of these needs by siphoning off dammed-up tensions in wholesome and socially acceptable ways.

If satisfied in opposite ways, neurotic or delinquent behaviour may be the result. Studies reveal that socially well-adjusted persons tend to be more successful in athletics, physical fitness, and physical education activities than are persons who are less well adjusted socially.

Jones, Hardy, and Wenger found some relationship between muscular function and social adjustment. In Jones study, subjects with high strength scores were rated high in popularity and social prestige and were well adjusted.

Whereas subjects with low strength scores had social substantial positive correlations between being esteemed by one’s classmates and leadership, health, cooperation, I.Q., and E.Q., and between general behaviour traits and school attitudes, muscular strength, and physical achievement.

Wenger found positive correlations which confirmed the hypothesis those individual differences in characteristic level of muscular tension in skeletal musculature are positively related to differences in (a) frequency of overt muscular activity, (b) speed of movement, (c) emotional behaviour and instability of response, (d) aggressiveness, and (e) irritability.

Reynolds found an r of .414 between scores on the Cowell Personal Distance Ballot and performance on the Purdue Motor Fitness Test, using preadolescent boys as subjects.

Several investigators related social adjustment to physical education performance. Cowell found that social adjustment ratings by teachers and by classmates were positively and significantly related to physical education grades.

Breck found correlations ranging from 27 to 90 between choice of friends and skill ratings in activity classes, with those selected as desirable friends having the higher skill ratings

Using a rating scale for measuring character and personality of persons in physical education classes, Blanchard found that desirable character and personality traits are stimulated by participation in physical education activities.

Walsh reported that girls whom others seek as team-mates and playing companions seem to be the ones who can perform well in physical activities.

Edwards found that performance in the Cowell Athletic Aptitude Test correlated 389 with the Partridge Leadership Ballot, and 371 with the Cowell Personal Distance Ballot.

These correlations, obtained with preadolescent faculty sons, were significant at the 1 percent level of confidence. Also using the Cowell personal Distance Ballot, Stover found a correlation of .661 between this measure of social acceptance and a 12-item battery of physical achievement.

Another group of studies revealed a relationship between athletic achievement and social adjustment. McKinney found that well-adjusted college students tended to be more athletic, to be more interested in the opposite sex, to participate more in extracurricular activities, and to be of a social nature.

Brace found a marked relationship between athletic ability and social status among pupils in grades 6 through 9.

Heniy obtained a positive correlation between general athletic ability and favourable attitudes about physical education. The correlation was highest in performances demanding extreme sustained physical exertion and lowest with agility and coordination.

Similarly, Biddulph found that students ranking high in athletic achievement showed a significantly greater degree of personal and social adjustment than students ranking low in athletic achievements.

Sperling and Signorella found differences in adjustment between athletes and non-athletes. Sperling found athletes to be more extroverted and ascendant. Signorella found that differences in amount of athletic participation were moderately related to scores on the Cowell Social Adjustment Index.

Zeleny indicated the researchers on leadership are in practically unanimous agreement that leaders are superior to nonleaders in intelligence, scholarship or knowledge, vitality, social adaptability, and athletic ability. Stogdill’s summary of leadership research to 1947 found height, weight, energy and health, and especially athletic prowess all associated with leadership.

Reputation of youngsters among their peers has been related to social adjustment by three investigators.

One researcher compared classroom choice status of a eighth graders with scores on the Test of Personality and found that the four components which significantly differentiated the two groups were sense of personal worth, sense of personal freedom, felling of belonging, and freedom from withdrawing tendencies all more characteristic of the higher status group.

Bonney found, at the sixth-grade level, that among children frequently chosen as playmates there was more “in-group” feeling whereas among children infrequently chosen as playmates there was little acceptance of each other. The rejected children were those considered to be poor playmates.

Tuddenham pointed out that the Reputation Test can be used to reveal problems for social maladjustments much earlier than they are ordinarily detected by adult observers. The test diagnoses a child’s social adjustment to his peers.

Comparing “fringers” with “active” junior high school boys, Cowell found that fringers were less acceptable, socially, to other boys and girls as compared with actives and were deemed less able to fill school positions.

Studying students’ objectives in physical education, Schurz found that 450 freshman high school girls most want to learn to get along with and understand others, to learn to control emotions and be a good sport, and to learn to lose graciously.