Introduction: Considering the growth of psychology in recent decades, and also the attention paid to specific activities and sports, which affected the aspects of this area of activity including Euraimonia well-being and self-esteem, the present study sought to investigate self-esteem and Euraimonia well-being in athletic and non-athletic veterans in South Khorasan.
Methodology: This study was a descriptive-analytical study which was carried out through field study. The population of the study included all male veterans of South Khorasan province; due the limitations for the scope of the study, 60 athletic veterans out of the whole population of the study accepted to cooperate with researchers. Therefore, 60 non-athletic veterans were randomly selected to take part in the study. The instruments of this study included standard Euraimonia well-being questionnaires (Waterman et al, 2010) and Connor-Davidson self-esteem scale (CD-RIS). The validity of the questionnaires were confirmed by a group of university teachers. The reliability of the questionnaires were established with a Cronbach alpha of (α=0.90 and α=0.89). The data analysis was performed through statistical and inferential statistics (T, Kolmogorov Smirnov, and …) and SPSS software edition 20.
Results: The findings of the research indicated that the athletic veterans were in better conditions in general and in particular they were better in both self-esteem (t t df=118, sig=0.001=5.87) and in Euraimonia well-being (t t df=118, sig=0.001=3.05). A direct and significant difference in Euraimonia well-being and self-esteem of the veterans was observed (r=0.6, α=0.0001).
Discussion: In line with other researches (Sylvestry, 2012, Mack, 2012, Ghaffari et al. 2007, Slutzky, 2010, the findings of the present research once again indicated the role of physical activities in improving self-esteem and Euraimonia well-being. Considering the effective role of physical activities in Euraimonia well-being and self-esteem of individuals and veterans in particular, it is recommended for the responsible organizations take the required measure in order to provide more people with necessary substructures for physical and social activities.