2.1. Sport and Social Benefits
As one of the social elements in society, sport is popularly recognized as a tool to create positive social value by generating social capital central to social inclusion, empowerment, well-being, community development, health education, and youth development [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20]. Previous research supports this argument in various contexts such as the UK, Canada, and the USA [
16,
21,
22,
23,
24]. According to the work of Lee, Cornwell, and Babiak [
6], there has been consistent support for the potential of sport’s contribution to society, but little empirical evidence in a standardized and systematic format. In addressing this issue, first, they chose five core areas to which sport can make a contribution to society in terms of social capital, collective identities, health literacy, well-being, and human capital by adapting the conceptual work of Lawson [
11] and other scholars’ supporting literature [
25,
26].
According to the work of Lawson [
11], sport, exercise, and physical education (SEPE) can develop and enhance social networks among participants, their families, residents of the community, and professions, generating social trust and norms of civil society. Secondly, he argues that SEPE can be designed to contribute to the development of collective identities by linking intergroup differences, promoting solidarity and social integration. Third, Lawson conceptualizes that SEPE can contribute to health-enhancing environments. Further, he argued that SEPE can improve well-being and health, nurture balanced relationships, and offer opportunities for identity development. Finally, he argues that SEPE can make a contribution to human capital development related to knowledge, skills, attitude, competence, capacity, and citizenship of individuals and groups. Following this foundation for the social contribution of sport, Lee, Cornwell, and Babiak [
6] developed a measurement for the chosen five core constructs to be influenced by sport based on extensive literature review of past measures in the respective areas. Additionally, they provided their paraphrased definitions based on supporting literature (see
Table 1). The findings demonstrated that a structural equation model based on a two group comparison by the awareness of a major charity sport event in a community reveals that the frequencies of exposures to community-oriented sports (e.g., intramural sport, local softball league, local tennis tournament) and participation in individual recreation sports positively influences the development of social capital, collective identities, and health literacy [
6]. In addition, they found that the awareness of a major charity sport event in the community played a moderating role in these causal relationships [
6]. Previous research also argues that the general public’s participation in sports activities in daily life could be a fundamental factor to influence various developmental outcomes in the context of grassroots sports [
27,
28].
Adapting Lawson’s [
11] seminal work as a theoretical framework and the following conceptual measurement model and the empirical evidence of Lee, Cornwell, and Babiak [
6], we hypothesize that frequency of participation in a range of activities of sport-based social initiative are expected to influence the multi-dimensional values of social benefits related to social relationships and development, well-being, human capital, and health. (see
Figure 1).
Hypothesis 1 (H1). The frequency of participation in a range of sport activities positively influences the perceived social benefits of social capital, collective identities, health literacy, well-being, and human capital of participants in a sport-based initiative.
2.2. Gratitude, Social Outcomes, and Prosocial Behaviors
In sport-based social initiatives in the forms of social sponsorship or CSR practices, participants experience or receive positive benefits either tangibly or intangibly offered from other individuals or organizations. For example, as a government’s administrative sports organization, the Korea Sport Promotion Foundation (KSPO) launched a “sports voucher” program in 2009 to partially subsidize lectures or entrance fees to sports classes or events for children and youth from low-income families as one of the channels of promoting healthy and active society and nation [
44]. More than 140,000 children and youth participated in the sport voucher program for the last six years from 2009 to 2014, receiving benefits from the initiative.
Given these characteristics, gratitude, defined as “a sense of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift, whether the gift be a tangible benefit from a specific other or a moment of peaceful bliss evoked by natural beauty” [
45] (p. 554), might be a fundamental construct to influence the social outcomes for participants or beneficiaries in sport-based social initiatives. In fact, many running organizations introduce several reasons to be thankful for running [
46,
47]. For example, they reason that running offers opportunities to get ourselves outside of the house or work and experience the natural beauty of creation by seeing others, animals, trees, and the world on a run. Therefore, gratitude might be a more immediate outcome for participants/beneficiaries to enjoy from fun and pleasant experiences in sport activities, especially cause-oriented sport activities, given that gratitude also can be referred to as pleasant state and is linked with positive emotions including contentment [
48].
There has been consistent support for the positive correlation between gratitude and positive outcomes related well-being, health, social relationships, and youth development. For example, Haidt [
49] argued gratitude promotes benefits exchanges and societal well-being [
49]. Emmons and McCullough [
50] argued that gratitude is strongly correlated with healthy psychological and social functions focusing on self-improvement and social ties [
50]. Wood et al. also summarized that gratitude is associated with positive emotional functioning, lower dysfunction, and positive social relationships [
51]. Given this theoretical foundation in previous research, we hypothesize that the gratitude of participants/beneficiaries is positively correlated with the social outcomes in the context of sport-based social initiatives. Specifically, we hypothesize that the perceived gratitude of participants mediates the relationship from their participation in sport activities to their social benefits in sport-based social initiatives (see
Figure 1).
Hypothesis 2 (H2). The frequency of participation in a range of sport activities related to a sport-based initiative positively influences the perceived social benefits through the mediation of gratitude.
In addition, given that gratitude would be a fundamental construct to influence the relationships and outcomes related to cause-oriented sport sponsorship and CSR practices, we want to view it as a more integrated mechanism. Notably, McCullough et al. [
52] originally proposed the three functions of gratitude as (1) “a moral barometer for beneficiaries by signaling the value of the relationship with benefactor for the gift bestowed upon them, (2) a moral reinforcer by increasing the probability that the benefactor will bestow gifts again in the future, and (3) a moral motive by spurring beneficiaries to respond prosocially toward the benefactor or other people” [
53] (p. 312). Recent experimental studies offered convincing evidence in support of the moral motive function of gratitude [
54,
55,
56], which spurs beneficiaries to respond prosocially toward other people as well as the benefactor. This dynamic nature of gratitude can also play a key role in encouraging participants, benefactors, and the general public to act more prosocially in the context of a sport-based social initiative. Thus, we raise an exploratory question: whether gratitude of participants can mediate the relationship from participation in sport and their prosocial behaviors in sport-based social initiatives (see
Figure 1).
Hypothesis 3 (H3). The frequency of participation in a range of sport activities related to a sport-based initiative positively influences their prosocial behavior through the mediation of gratitude.
Hypothesis 4 (H4). The frequency of participation in a range of sport activities related to a sport-based initiative positively influences their prosocial behavior through the serial mediation of gratitude and their perceived social benefits.
In the following empirical work, Study 1 and Study 2 were designed to examine the relationships between sport participation, gratitude, social benefits, and the intention of prosocial behavior in a sport-based initiative. Two separate surveys were administered through face-to-face interviews with independent and random samples representative of the Singaporean residents in terms of gender, race, income, education, and age (20–59) in October 2014 for Study 1 and February 2015 for Study 2. We tested the hypothesized conceptual relationships in the context of a national sport-based social initiative of Singapore. The “Vision 2030: Live Better through Sport” (a short name is used subsequently as Vision 2030) is a sport initiative led by a sport government organization, Sport Singapore, with active participation from the general public and private sectors in Singapore. As one of the fundamental engines for it, “Active Singapore” was launched in April 2014 in order to create a sporting ecosystem with sports programs available, accessible, and affordable to everyone regardless of their skill level and age. Therefore, it offers a specific target population in the context of a sport-based development to examine the actual developmental relationships and outcomes with realities and complexities.