ABSTRACT
Social isolation has been an important strategy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the practice of sports and physical exercise and has also had an impact on perception of variables such as self-esteem and subjective well-being (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule [PANAS], and life satisfaction). Even though these variables have a significant relation, they may also give rise to affect mediation, which is not conclusive in this pandemic era. For this reason, this research's objective is to compare those variables before and during confinement, in addition to analyzing the mediation effect within a structural model in SmartPLS. By conducting a quantitative, correlational, and comparative research, a sample of 200 sports and physical exercise students from a university located to the northeast of Mexico was obtained. Significant differences were found in variables such as self-esteem (pre-pandemic [M= 3.65;DE= .272] and during [M= 3.23;DE= .543];p< .001) and positive (pre-pandemic [M= 3.64;DE= .601] and during [M= 3.41;DE= .797];p< .05) and negative (pre-pandemic [M= 2.37;DE= .733] and during [M= 2.11;DE= .765];p< .01) affects before and during the pandemic, as well as a mediation effect of positive affect in the relation between self-esteem and life satisfaction (t= 3.772;p< .001). This is intended to contribute to the understanding of the pandemic effects on the relation between sports practice and positive psychology variables, perspective which has gained great relevance in the last years.