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Personalityand
Sport
What Is Personality?
Measuring PersonalityCognitive Strategies and
Athletic Success
What Makes Up Personality?
Approaches to Understanding Personality
(continued)
What IsPersonality?
The characteristics or blend of
characteristics that make
a person unique.
What Makes Up Personality?
What Makes Up Personality?
Psychological CoreThe most basic and deepest attitudes, values, interests, motives, and self-worth of a person—the “real” person.
Example: A person’s guiding values in everyday life
Typical Responses
The way one typically adjusts or responds to the environment.
TraitsExample: Being happy-go-lucky, shy etc.
Role–Related Behavior
How one acts in a particular social situation, or when fulfilling expectations of self and others.
Example: Behavior as a student, parent, or friend; leader or captain of a team
Psychodynamic Approach
Approaches to Understanding Personality
Trait Approach
Situational Approach
Interactional Approach
Phenomenological Approach
Research Support: The Bottom Line
Current impact. Little influence; hasn’t been adopted by most contemporary sport psychologists.Weakness. Focuses almost entirely on internal determinants of behavior, giving little attention to the social environment.
Contribution:
Psychodynamic approach
Research Support: The Bottom Line
Current impact. Little influence, but much prior study.Weakness. Knowing traits will not always help predict behavior in particular situations.
Contribution:
Trait approach
Research Support: The Bottom Line
Current impact. Little influence.Weakness. Situation will not always influence individual behavior.
Contribution:
Situational approach
Research Support: The Bottom Line
Current impact. Considerable influence; adopted by most contemporary sport psychologists.Weakness. Complexity
Contribution:
Interactionalapproach
Personality and Athletics
Controversy: Is personality important to performance?
Situation-specific trait tests predict behavior more accurately than do general trait measures.
Measuring Personality
It is often more effective to compare personality test scores relative to an individual’s own previous test results than with group norms.
Measure both traits and states.
General Versus Situation– (Sport–) Specific Measures
Selected Findings in Personality Research
Some relationship exists between personality traits and states and sport performance, but it is far from perfect or precise.
No single definitive personality profile has been found that consistently distinguishes athletes from nonathletes.
Few personality differences are evident between male and female athletes. (continued)
Selected Findings in Personality Research
Type-A behavior patterns (particularly the anger-hostility component) are associated with cardiovascular disease and appear to be altered via exercise.
Exercise and increased fitness appear to be associated with increases in self-esteem, especially in low self-esteem individuals.
Athlete stereotypes
High appraisals of self-worth / Egocentricity?
Selected Findings in Personality Research
Profiles of stereotypical athlete: ________
General research findings:
Selected Findings in Personality Research
Profiles of women athletes
compared to female non-athletes:
Selected Findings in Personality Research
Morgan’s (1980) mental health model shows that successful athletes exhibit greater positive mental health than do less successful athletes. However, precise predictions have not been achieved and should not be used for team selection.
The Iceberg Profile
Profile of Mood States (POMS)
The Iceberg Profile
Sensation seeking and extreme sports: What makes some enjoy high risk activities?
Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale
adventure seeking; experience seeking; disinhibition; dislike of boredom
Ex. Study of 80 – hang gliders, car racers, & bowlers…..
21 sky-divers vs. nondivers
Summary of Personality Factors in Sport
• Personality traits are thought to influence actual performance in a relatively small way
• Best way to approach the study of personality styles in athletes is to use an interactional theory or approach, which few studies have done
Summary of Personality Factors in Sport: Interactional Model
Personality(traits, life experiences, typical cognitions & emotions
etc.)
XSituation
(current emotions, type of sport, position, opponent, coaches, level of competition, etc.)
Cognitive Strategies and Athletic Success
Cognitive strategies and mental strategies are among the skills and behaviors that athletes use in competition.
Both quantitative and qualitative cognitive strategy measures have been shown to differentiate between more and less successful athletes.
Cognitive Strategies and Athletic Success
More successful athletes are characterized by use of a variety of cognitive strategies, including
arousal regulation techniques (can control anxiety)
show self-confidence concentration and focus techniques feeling in control and not forcing things low in trait anxiety
(continued)
Cognitive Strategies and Athletic Success
Using positive imagery and thought
Exercising commitment and determination….self-discipline
Setting goals
Using well-developed plans and coping strategies
Having adaptive reactions to loss Sensation seeking and extreme sports