Making the case for human flourishing in sport and performance domains

Contemporary developments pertaining to human flourishing have seen a significant rise within the last decade, particularly across health, education, and business domains (Vanderweele et al., 2025). These understandings, which conceptually improve previous frameworks (e.g., Keyes, 2002), define human flourishing as “the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the contexts in which that person lives” (Lomas et al., 2025, p. 205). While broader scholarship continues to grow, human flourishing remains underexamined within sport and performance domains, which may stand to benefit from these approaches. The aim of this presentation is to make a conceptual, theoretical, and applied case for advancing knowledge of human flourishing in sport and performance domains. Drawing on a conceptually-driven thematic narrative literature review with critical commentary, which comprised 26 studies, two central areas are considered which include: a) how contemporary perspectives of human flourishing can progress sport and performance psychology scholarship (e.g., greater knowledge diversity), and b) how sport and performance can, in turn, advance human flourishing scholarship (e.g., contribute to individual livelihoods, communities, and humanity). Various recommendations are provided to delegates: first, researchers are advised to consider quantitative (e.g., measuring dimensions of flourishing that are common across sportspeople) and qualitative (e.g., expanding a global lexicon of what it means to flourish) means of making significant progress. Second, academics, practitioners, and decision-makers are encouraged to form closer partnerships which prioritize the co-design of strategies, resources, guidelines, and educational curricular to promote human flourishing across sport and performance.