The effect of sport event participation on well-being: the role of running for charity
研究了跑步赛事参与如何从享乐和实现两个维度改变参与者幸福感，并比较了为慈善而跑者与普通参与者的差异。
Research question This study explored (1) how participants’ well-being changed after a running event from both hedonic (i.e. positive emotion and life satisfaction) and eudaimonic (i.e. engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) perspectives and (2) how these changes differed between participants who ran for charity and those who did not.Research methods Using a pre–post design, we collected data from participants of the 2024 Reykjavik Marathon (N = 180). A repeated-measures ANCOVA was employed to test the research questions.Results and findings (1) Participants experienced increases in positive emotion and accomplishment following the event. (2) Engagement increased after the event for participants who ran for charity but not for those who did not.Implications The findings extend the literature by demonstrating that sport event participation and its interaction with charity involvement generate dimension-specific changes in well-being, rather than uniform improvements across outcomes. Practically, the results suggest that event organizers can enhance participants’ positive emotion and sense of accomplishment through goal-oriented event design, while charity components may further strengthen engagement by linking participation to meaningful social impact.