The incidence of psychomotor situations of expression about the state of mind of university students

Abstract

Physical activity in general and motor games in particular have been shown to trigger positive emotional reactions that tend to improve participants’ moods, contributing to their emotional well-being. Expressive activities have traditionally been discriminated in curricula despite their ability to put into operation very particular and significantly different mechanisms to other types of activities more commonly used in Physical Education sessions such as Sports. Such discrimination against other types of proposals may be due to the lack of specific training of professionals or to the association between this type of activities and the “feminine”. The present study analyzed the impact on moods of a total of 10 psychomotor games with expressive content. The values assigned to the different POMS categories were compared at the beginning and end of the sessions and the participants were organized in mixed groups and in single gender groups. The results show that when intervening in psychomotor situations of expression both men and women improve the mood. Although the behavior is most similar in all moods when participating in mixed groups. Professionals are encouraged to tackle this type of activity without the prejudices that tend to prevail over their female component.