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VU
SportPsychology
(PSY407)
LESSON
14
PERSONALITY
AND THE ATHLETE
Sport
psychologists have long
beenintrigued with the question of
whether or not successful athletic
performancecan
be accurately predicted on the basis of personality
or psychologicalassessment.
Effectiveness
of psychological testing in predicting
athletic success is quite frequent. A
large percentage
of
professional teams
usepsychological testing to
assist them in making personnel
decisions.
In
the 1960s and
1970s,research involving the
athleteand personality assessment
was very popular.
Ruffer(1975,
1976a, 1976b), forexample,
cited 572 sources of
original research in a compilation
of
references
on the relationship between personality and athletic
performance. In recent years,
however,
interest
in this kind of research
haswaned because of lack of
consistent correlations between
personality
factors and athletic
prowess.
Theconcepts
to be introduced andstudied in this
lectureare:
·
Definition
of personality
·
Theories
of personality
·
Measurement
of personality
·
Thecredulous
versus
skepticalargument
·
Personalityand
sport performance.
Personality
Defined
Personality
is defined as an
individual'scharacteristic pattern of
thinking, feeling, and acting. In
other
words
personality is "all the consistent ways
in which the behavior of
oneperson differs from
that of
others,especially
in social situations." Thekey
words in this definitionare
basically
"consistent"and
"differs".
An individual's personality defines the
person in unique ways
thatremain stable
and
consistentover
time. If an athlete consistentlyexhibits
the characteristics of being assertive on
and off
the
athletic field, we might
saythat he is an
assertiveperson.
Theories
of Personality
Thefour
major theoretical approaches to the study of
personality are as follows:
1.
Psychodynamic theory
2.
Social learning theory
3.
Humanistic theory
4.
Trait theory
PsychodynamicTheory
This
theory basically deals
withUnconscious conflicts between
internalimpulses and
socialrestraints.
Perhaps
the most influential proponent of
psychodynamic theory
wasSigmund Freud. Among the
neo-
Freudiansare
Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, and
Eric Erickson. Freud'spsychodynamic
theory andhis
method
of treating personality disturbances
werebased primarily
uponself-analysis
andextensive
clinical
observation of neurotics.
Two
distinguishing characteristics of the
psychodynamicapproach to personality have
beenits
emphasisupon
in-depth examination of the wholeperson,
and its emphasisupon
unconsciousmotives.
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SportPsychology
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In
Freud's view, the id,
ego,and superego form the
tripartite structure of personality. The
id represents the
unconscious
instinctual core of personality; in a sense, the id
is the pleasure-seeking mechanism. In
contrast, the
egorepresents
the conscious, logical,reality-oriented
aspect of the personality. The superego
represents the
conscience
of the individual; it is the internalized moral
standards of society
impressedupon the person
by
parentalcontrol
and the process of socialization. Freud
proposed that the ego aids
in the resolution of conflicts
between
the id and the superego. Essentially,
Freud advocated a conflict theory of
personality. In this respect,
the
three parts of the
psychistructure are always
in conflict.
Theindividual's
personality is the sum total of the
dynamic conflicts between the impulse to
seek releaseand
the
inhibition against the
impulses.The individual's
unconscioussexual and
aggressiveinstincts are
major
determinants
of behavior according to
Freud.Athletic aggression
represents a potential example of
this
approach.Instinct
theory provides one explanation for the
phenomenon of violence in sport.
SocialLearning
Theory
Thebasic
position of the social learning theory is
that humanbehavior is a
function of social learning and
the
strength
of the situation. An individual
behavesaccording to how she
haslearned to behave as this is
consistent
withenvironmental
constraints. If the environmental situation is
prominent, the effect of personality traits or
unconsciousmotives
upon behavior should be minimal.
According to social learning theory, a
child's
performanceand
behavior is a function of the child's
experiences
andenvironment.
Theorigin
of social learning theorycan be
traced to Clark Hull's1943
theory of learning and to B.F.
Skinner's
(1953)
behaviorism. Other researchers, such as
Miller and Dollard
(Miller,1941), Mischel (1986),
andBandura
(1977,1986),
extended the Hulliannotions of
human behavior.Two of the primary
mechanisms
throughwhich
individualslearn
are modelingandsocialreinforcement.
Modeling,
or imitative behavior, refers to
the
phenomenon
of learning through observation.
AlbertBandura's social learning
theory is based primarily
upon
this
important concept. According to
Bandura, behavior is best explained as a
function of observational
learning.
Social reinforcement is based upon the
notion that
rewardedbehaviors are likely
to be repeated.
Forexample,
a young cricket player observes on television
that professional
athletesare often able to
intimidate
bowlersthrough
aggressive behavior. Using the
professional athletes as his model, he
tries the same tactics in
his
game,and
is reinforced by the coach with a pat on the
back. This
exampleillustrates how young
athletes
develop
questionable behaviors through modeling
and social reinforcement.
HumanisticTheory
The
major proponents of the humanistic theory of
personality are Carl
Rogersand Abraham
Maslow.Rogers
andMaslow
argued that humannature is
inherently healthy andconstructive. At
the center of the humanistic
theory
of personality is the concept of self-actualization.
Thehuman organism possesses
an innate drive or
tendency
to enhance itself, to realize
capacities,and to act to
become a better and more
self-fulfilledperson. In
the
developing personality, openness to
experiencesthat then shape
the individual is of c critical importance. It
is
not necessarily the
experiencethat shape the
individual,but the individual's
perception of thatexperience.
Self-actualization
is an on going process of
seekingcongruence between
one'sexperience and
one'sself
concept.
Maslow'scontribution
to the humanistic theory is in the development of
his hierarchicalmotive
system based
on
the notion of hierarchical
needs.For Maslow, the end
goal of all human experience
is self-actualization, but
to
get there the person
mustfirst have lesser
needsfulfilled.
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TraitTheory
Thebasic
position of trait or factor
theory is that personality can be
described in terms of traits possessed
by
individuals.
These personality traits are
consideredsynonymous with dispositions to
act in a certain way.
Traits
areconsidered
to be stable, enduring, andconsistent
across a variety of
differingsituations.
Among
the most ardent advocates of
traitpsychology are
psychologistssuch as
GordonAllport,
Raymond
Cattell, and Hans Eysenck. Cattell
(1965, 1973)
identifiedthirty-five different traits
that he
believed
described a personality. Using a
similarapproach, British
psychologists(Eysenck &
Eysenck,
1968)concentrated
on the dimensional traits of neuroticism-stability and
introversion-extraversion.
Cattell
emphasized the importance of the environment. Cattell
(1965) believed that typical
responsesare
a
function of both the
situation(environment) and the
personality disposition. This is evident
fromhis
formula,
R
= S x P in which, R=
response, S= situation, and P=
Personality.
Thethirty-five
specific personality traits originally
identified by Cattell in 1965form the
basis of the fifth
edition
of the 16PF, a measure of personality. In
recent years, traits
psychologistsclaim to
haveidentified
the
big five personality traits (John &
Srivastava, 1999;
Kalat,1999). The big
five traits which are
believed
to
represent a consolidation of
Cattell'soriginal thirty-five personality
traits are the following:
1.
Neuroticism
2.
Extraversion
3.
Agreeableness
4.
Conscientiousness
5.
Openness
to new ideas.
Thegreater
strength of the trait theory of personality is
that it allows for the easy
and objective
measurement
of personality through the use of inventories. If it
can be demonstrated that a
collection of
traits
can accurately describe a
person's psychological
profile,then this certainly is superior to
a
psychoanalyticapproach,
in which personality is inferred through
less objective techniques.
Conversely,
the
weakness of the trait approach is
that it may fail to consider
the whole person,
sinceaccording to this
approach;
personality is represented by a collection of
specific traits.
References
Cox,
H. Richard. (2002). Sport
Psychology:Concepts and
Applications.(Fifth Edition).
NewYork:
McGraw-HillCompanies
Lavallec.D.,
Kremer, J., Moran,A., &
Williams. M. (2004)Sports
Psychology: Contemporary Themes.
NewYork:
Palgrave
MacmillanPublishers
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