Understanding Athlete Personality: Traits, Types, and Impact in Sports

1. LGA504 Sport and Exercise Psychology Personality and the Athlete Image by Getty Images

2. Lesson Outcomes In today’s session, we will look at the following… Define personality and explain structure Discuss 5 major approaches to understanding personality Identify different types of personality and personality traits Describe ways in which personality is measured Explain research that has investigated the role of personality in sport What role does personality play in sport? Image by Getty Images

3. Definitions of Personality

4. Concentric Ring Theory (Hollander, 1967)

5. The Five Viewpoints of Personality

6. Different Types of Personality What ‘Personalities’ are there? TYPE ‘A’ CHARACTERISTICS Highly Competitive Strong Desire to Succeed Works Fast Likes to Control Prone to Suffer Stress Image by Press Association Images TYPE ‘B’ CHARACTERISTICS Non-Competitive Unambiguous Works more Slowly Does not Enjoy Control Less Prone to Stress Image by Press Association Images

7. Eysenck's (1966) Four Personality Types

8. Cattell’s (1965) Theory of Personality 16 Personality Factors Reserved  Outgoing Stable  Unstable Sober  Happy-go-Lucky Shy  Adventurous Trusting  Suspicious Forthright  Shrewd Conservative  Experimenting Undisciplined  Controlled Unintelligent Intelligent Humble  Assertive Expedient  Conscientious Tough-Minded  Tender-Minded Practical  Imaginative Placid  Apprehensive Group-Dependent  Self-Sufficient Relaxed  Tense Image by Getty Images

9. Theories of Personality A Five-Factor Model (Costa and McCae, 1985) Conscientiousness High scorers are organised, scrupulous, and diligent. Low scorers are disorganised and lackadaisical. Agreeableness Interpersonal style. Higher scorers are cooperative and establish rapport with others well. Neuroticism Individual differences in the tendency to experience distress. High scorers are more likely to experience negative psychological responses. Openness Relates to creativity, sensitivity, and behavioural flexibility. High scorers may be more open to new experiences. Extroversion Seeks stimulation. Likely to be sociable, active, and experience positive emotional states. Introverts are the opposite. Image by Blend Images

10. Personality Measures

11. Personality Research Athletes and Non-Athletes Eysencket al., (1982) proposed that people who responded highly on the extroversion and psychoticism subscales of the EPQ were more likely to participate in sport . Francis et al., (1998) compared 133 university hockey players to a group on non-athletes. Hockey players scored higher on extroversion and psychoticism, supporting Eysenck’s theory. Are specific personalities drawn to sport? Image by Press Association Images McKelvieet al., (2003) found no differences between university athletes and non-athletes on extroversion but found athletes were less neurotic i.e. more emotionally stable.

12. Personality Research Successful and Unsuccessful Athletes Garland and Barry (1990): 16PF Tough-mindedness, extroversion, group dependence and emotional stability accounted for 29% variance in skill in a group of American college athletes. Piedmont et al., (1999): NEO-PI Found that conscientiousness was the only trait higher performance was associated with in a group of female footballers. Also found that extraversion and neuroticism were correlated with coach rating of performance but NOT objective measures of performance. Are specific personalities drawn to sport? Image by Getty Images

13. Research Choice of Sport Schurret al., (1977) found that team sport athletes were more dependent, extroverted and anxious than individual sport athletes. It was also identified that individual sport athletes were more imaginative. Breivik (1996) found that high-risk sport athletes have different personality profiles compared to low-risk sports athletes. Specifically, high-risk sport athletes scored higher on scales of stability, extraversion and adventure seeking. Do certain personalities enjoy high-risk sports? Image by Photo Researchers

14. Quiz

15. Lesson Evaluation In today’s session, we looked at the following… Define personality and explain structure Personality can be defined as “The sum total of an individual’s characteristics which make him unique (Hollander, 1971) Discuss 5 major approaches to understanding personality We discussed the viewpoints of psychodynamic, trait, situational, interactional and phenomenological Identify different types of personality and personality traits In addition to Type ‘A and Type ‘B’ personalities, we discussed the different personality traits identified by Eysenck, Cattell and Costa and McCae Describe ways in which personality is measured Personality can be measured using the EPI, the 16PF and the NEO-PI Explain research that has investigated the role of personality in sport We looked at research exploring athlete and non-athlete, successful athlete and non successful athlete, and choice of sport personality differences

16. References Breivik, G. (1996). Personality, sensation seeking and risk taking among Everest climbers. International Journal of Sports Psychology, 27, 308-320. Cattell, R.B. (1965). The scientific analysis of personality. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Costa, P.T. and McCrae, R.R. (1985). The NEO personality inventory manual. Odessa, FL, Psychology Assessment Resources. Eysenck, H.J. (1966). Fact and fiction in psychology. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Eysenck, H.J., Nias, D.K.B. and Cox, D.N. (1982). Sport and Personality. Advances in Behavioural Research and Therapy, 4, 1-56. Francis, L.J., Kelly, P. and Jones, S.J. (1998). The personality profile of female students who play hockey. Irish Journal of Psychology, 19, 394-399. Garland, D.J. and Barry, J.R. (1990). Personality and leader behaviours in collegiate football: a multidimensional approach to performance. Journal of Research in Personality, 24, 355-370. Hollander, E.P. (1967). Principles and assessment of social psychology. New York: Rinehart & Winston. Piedmont, R.L., Hill, D.C. and Blanco, S. (1999). Predicting athletic performance using the five-factor model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 769-777. Schurr, K.T., Ashley, M.A. and Joy, K.L. (1977). A multivariate analysis of male athlete characteristics: sport type and success. Multivariate Experimental Clinical Research, 3, 53-68. Somer, O., Korkmaz, M., & Tatar, A. (2002). Development of Five Factor Personality Inventory. Turkish Journal of Psychology, 17(49), 21-33.