Or more to the point, results in feelings of rejection and loneliness.
In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown was never able to kick the football, fly a kite properly or lead a baseball team. He was also sad and often the target of ridicule from his peers. A new Canadian study looking at the connections between athletic skill and social acceptance among school children confirms that Chuck's problems were true to life: kids place a great deal of value on athletic ability, and youngsters deemed unskilled by their peers often experience sadness, isolation and social rejection at school.
In a study published in The Journal of Sport Behavior, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton examined the relationships among perceived athletic competence, peer acceptance and loneliness in elementary school children. Their findings will likely confirm the experience of anyone who was picked last for the team in gym class: children seen as athletic by their classmates are also better liked and less likely to feel lonely, while unathletic children experience the opposite.
"For both boys and girls, we found that popular children reported less loneliness and received higher athletic ability ratings from their peers than rejected children," says lead researcher Janice Causgrove Dunn, from the Faculty of Physical & Recreation at the University of Alberta. "Conversely, the kids who reported higher levels of loneliness tended to receive lower athletic ability ratings and lower social acceptance ratings from their peers."
Past studies have found that loneliness in childhood and adolescence is associated with many psychosocial and emotional problems, and prolonged loneliness has the potential to seriously undermine an individual's psychological, emotional and physical well-being. Lonely children are often less physically active and less fit, and more likely to experience tension and anxiety than their non-lonely counterparts. In adolescence and early adulthood, loneliness has been linked to behaviors including cigarette smoking, marijuana use and alcoholism, as well as an increased risk of school drop out and depression.
"Given the proven negative impact of loneliness on a child's well being, this kind of research is an important endeavor," says Causgrove Dunn. "It's important to identify and understand the factors that might increase a child's likelihood of being accepted by the peer group, because this, in turn, decreases the likelihood of that child experiencing the destructive psychosocial and emotional problems that often come with rejection."
The conclusions of the study -- believed to be the first to look at the relationship between loneliness and perceptions of athletic competence in elementary school children -- are based on responses from 208 children in Grades 4 through 6 at seven different elementary schools in a western Canadian city. Ninety-nine boys and 109 girls completed questionnaires used to measure children's loneliness levels in school, as well as self-perceived athletic ability. Researchers also asked participants to rate the athletic ability of their classmates and identify the classmates who they most liked and who they least liked in order to assess peer rejection and peer acceptance.
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Here is some advice to anyone who gets picked last on a team.
I was a victim in grade school of getting picked last and it did hurt. Now, I'm 39 years old, playing on a basketball team with friends and yes, I do get picked last but I love the game and love to play. Attitude is the best thing you can give to your team if you are lacking in skill compared to the other players. Keep a very strong positive attitude, try your best, encourage and congratulate the other players who do well is the best thing you can do for your team. Remember you are only playing for fun and your goal is to not be a Michael Jordon or Venus Williams. Never feel inferior to the other players, they probably just have more experience than you. Also remember that the players who dominate the team with their skills are also doing it for YOU too, to make the team win, not themselves. Any contribution to the team is great. Being picked last and having a positive attitude will make any person a very strong person and you will realize the respect the other players will give you for it. In any team there are always a few who dominate the team and score the most points and these players are focused more about their own abilities rather than to care about yours. Remember too that the lest skilled players make the team worth playing because even in the professional leagues, there are players who are more skilled than others but get respected as an important part of the team. I entirely agree that 10% of your well being in life comes from what happens to you and 90% is how you react to it. Good luck playing and keep smiling and showing team spirit!!!!!
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