PERSONALITY

Personality in Sport and Performance

Personality in Sport and Performance

Introduction

Personality is a psychological construct, to which we refer to a dynamic set of characteristics of a person. Never the whole of physical or genetic characteristics that determine an individual is its internal organization that makes us act differently to one, or more circumstances. Personality is a set of characteristics that defines a person's way of behaving.

Discussion

It has long been commonly believed that certain psychological characteristics related to success in athletic endeavors. No, intelligent individual would ever make light of the importance of physical skills or talent, but what is the equation for success when talent equated across athletes? In certain situations, the start of the Olympic 100 meter dash for instance, it is believable that any one of several athletes could achieve the gold medal. How much he or she wants the victory often purported to be a salient factor in the eventual victor.

In recent years, individuals interested in this relationship between psychological characteristics and athletic success has collected personality data in the hopes of clarifying the question. Several questions raised, and research surrounds each of them. Is there a personality profile that characterizes a certain sport athlete, i.e. a football type or a wrestling type? Are successful individuals and teams characterized by a personality profile? Does, athletic participation influences the personality of the athlete? Certain purposes of the assessment of the athletic personality are inherent in the aforementioned questions. If there is such a set of characteristics that combine to comprise the football type, then the coach could select those individuals who possess the qualities for successful performance.

This becomes increasingly important if one could find that certain personality profiles predispose success. In addition to selection, a more humanistic viewpoint: might be to promote within the individual those characteristics which allow for increased self-actualizing performance. If it could be shown that mere participation in sporting endeavors influences the personality of the participant, then perhaps various claims could be made for participation--enhancing cooperation, building leaders, ameliorating aggressive tendencies, and the like. Such claims made however, even in light of limited or no evidence.

There is little consensus in the area of personality from the psychologist's point of view. Even definitions, of personality vary according to theoretical viewpoints--that is apparently the way it has to be. This makes for complicated understanding. With all the confusion, what should one accept? At the risk of providing a very superficial underpinning of personality concepts, let me suggest some reasonable positions that any personality theory ought to encompass.

The theory ought to account for a degree of consistency (a genetic component) exhibited across like situations, but it also must leave room for the behavioral fluctuations (an environmental component). This view of man described very well by Kluckhohn and Murray:

Every man is in some respects

--like all other men

--like some other men

--like no other man.

Personality is more than we see on the surface and so obvious responses are not always good indicators of the basic personality ...