Define Personality and How It Affects Sports Performance free essay sample

P1 define personality and how it affects sports performance By Josh Haynes Personality Personality has been of interest to sport physiologists and researchers for a very long time, dating back to around the 1800s, the reason why it is of such is interest is because they want to find out how personality affects someone when they are doing sport as to what personality makes them better at specific sports compared to other people. But as it is hard to find a direct link from someone’s personality to the specific set of skills they have, there is very little evidence which shows what personality helps someone become good at a specific sport. Theories There are many theories that have been created to help try and explain how personality can influence sports performance. The first theory is martins schematic view, this is where they believe that personality has three different levels that relate to each other and these are: * Psychological core * Typical core * Role-related behaviour The physical core is a core that is believed to be always constant, this is the part of you that contains your beliefs, values, attitudes and your interests. We will write a custom essay sample on Define Personality and How It Affects Sports Performance or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The typical core on the other hand is how you react and respond to different situations to the world that is around you. An example of this would be if there was a bad foul in a sport such as rugby you may get rather annoyed and shout and scream but then when you come in contact with someone else you are really shy. The role related behaviour is the specific circumstances that you usually find yourself in, and this will change the mostly within your personality. For example you may be the captain of the team so you take on roles such as leadership but then in your normal working life you are the one taking the orders. The second theory is the Psychodynamic theory. This theory says that ones personality is made up of two parts and they are the conscious and unconscious parts. One part within the conscious and unconscious part is the instinctive drive, this is the part which makes you do things without even thinking about doing them. The next part is your ego and super ego, for example when a footballer is chosen or asked to take a penalty for the team they may refuse do too not wanting to miss and letting the team down. The third theory is the Trait-centred views, this is where they believe that people have certain traits which determines how someone should behave. They believe there are two main parts to your personality and these are an introversion-extroversion dimension and a stable-neurotic dimension. Introverts are people that will prefer to do a task that is not exciting meaning that they would rather do a task that is focused on concentration. Extroverts are people that like excitement, they get bored easily and cant focus for too long and like to switch it up a bit. Stable people are people who are always easy going where as neurotic people are restless and anxious. The fourth theory is situational-centred views, this is different to most other personality theories, this is because they believe that behaviour depends on the situation and environment that you are in. For example someone outside of a sport may be shy but when playing a specific sport in a specific environment they may be loud and aggressive. The next theory is the interactional view, this is where you consider how specific situations and personality traits will link together. This is when situational factors are strong in sporting situations such as a penalty shoot-out, they can easily predict your behaviour rather than your personality trait. The last theory is the personality types theory, this is where they believe personality traits are grouped into two groups, and these are groups a and b. Group a are people that lack patience, and like to complete objectives and goals quickly. Where as type b are more tolerant to others and more relaxed and take things slow. How personality effects sport performance There isn’t really a direct link between personality type and successful sporting performance. But they do suggest that certain personality types are drawn to specific sports. Athletes versus non-athletes and individuals versus team sports. When conducting research they had found that there is no such thing as an athletic personality. But there are differences between professional athletes and non-professional athletes but also between athletes within different sports. Non-athletes are more extroverted in team sports but in individual sports they are more introverted. Elite versus non-elite athletes. Researchers use to believe that professional athletes display lower levels of depression, fatigue, confusion and anger, but high levels of vigour. But recent research proves this wrong and shows that personality only affects less than 1% of the performance variation. Type a versus type b. Within sport it is believed that type a personalities are more likely than type b personalities to continue within a sport when they are less motivated or the sport becomes less favourable towards them.