WHAT CAN PERSONALITY RESEARCH TELL US ABOUT

INDIVIDUAL SPORT AND EXERCISE PARTICIPATION

MOTIVES?

WORD COUNT: 1,497

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 3
Approaches to Personality ...................................................................................................................................... 3
Theories for Motivation .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Participation Motives ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................. 5
References .............................................................................................................................................................. 5
INTRODUCTION
Sports and exercise psychology represent the study of people and their behaviour in sports environments;
forming theoretical representations of this understanding. It allows psychologists to determine the underlying
principles and traits key to athletes. These can be implemented to support adults and children taking part in
different sporting activities, maximising their benefit from it (Hollander, 1968; Martens, 1975). Personality in
psychology is the characteristics that make a person (Weinberg & Gould, 2010). The application of personality
can guide us to work better and effectively with athletes and to better understand what separates an athlete
from a non-athlete (Allen, et al., 2013). Motivation looks at a player’s drive for playing a sport. This essay will
discuss theories of personality and motivation and how they affect individual motives.

APPROACHES TO PERSONALITY
The psychodynamic approach was put forward by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. It theorises a constantly
changing personality, influenced by childhood constructs and constant interaction with the environment. It
focuses on the unconscious, instinctive drives influencing behaviour, the ‘Id’, and their competition with the
conscious aspects of personality, the ‘ego’. To add to the conflict, there is also an aspect that comprises the
social morals and what is expected of the individual, the ‘superego’ (Freud, 1961). The theory has the
advantage of looking at the individual as whole, including all the conflicts and changes s/he undergoes due to
all internal and external influences, rather as a set of traits.

This, however, has several weaknesses. Firstly, it focuses on internal factors of behaviour with little attention
to the social environment. It is also not a very practical approach as many sports psychologists aren’t qualified
to psychoanalyse athletes and it is difficult to pin all the conscious and unconscious motivations for an
individual accurately. Moreover, it is very difficult to use empirically. Due to these reasons, it isn’t accepted by
many sports psychologists. It did however, put forward the idea that athletes are under conscious control and
that it is important to consider these factors.

Traits approach dominated the early study of personality. Some aspects of personality (traits) are considered
to be central to a person regardless of the situation. These are seen as central to the character and to remain
the same over time. For example, if an athlete is competitive, s/he will be predisposed to playing with their full
potential and trying to beat their competition regardless of the situation (McRea & Costa, 1987; Gill &
Williams, 2008; Vealey, 2002).

Today, the ‘Big 5 Model of Personality’ is the mostly widely accepted trait approach (McRea & Costa, 1987). It
looks at five main categories, with all more specific traits falling one of the below:
1. Neuroticism, i.e. nervousness, anger and anxious tendencies
2. Extraversion, i.e. enthusiasm, sociability, assertiveness and high activity level
3. Openness to experience, i.e. curiosity and need for variability
4. Agreeableness, i.e. modesty and amiability
5. Conscientiousness, i.e. self-discipline.
These five dimensions make it much easier to discuss personality empirically, by giving us qualitative and
quantitative measures. The theory suggests that those with different levels of these characteristics will act
differently. For example, people scoring high in conscientiousness are known to be more motivated to self-
discipline, while those high on neuroticism usually be sensitive and self-conscious. Studies show that high
scores in personality traits of extraversion and conscientiousness have positive correlation with performance
in some physical activities (Rhodes & Smith, 2006). According to Allen and colleagues (2013), athletes score
higher on extraversion than nonathletes. Moreover, athletes who play team sports, such as football, score
higher on extraversion and lower on conscientiousness than athletes who play individual sports like singles
tennis.
Despite its strengths, the approach fails to account for how traits may differ from situation to situation. It
accounts for typical responses but neglects the influences of a given situation. For example, some players, like
Cristiano Ronaldo, get angry easily during a match, however players like Lionel Messi retain their calm. While
they may have similar traits overall, their response can be different based on the situation, e.g. opponents
trying to make him angry by tackling or pushing.

Another key model for understanding personality is the situational approach. It proposes that behaviour is
determined largely by the situation or environment. It originates from social learning theory (Bandura, 1997);
theory about behaviour changes through observational learning and social reinforcement (feedback). It
suggests people’s actions change based on the reinforcement they receive. Someone may act confident in one
situation but tentative in another, depending on individual personality traits. An individual may score highly as
an introvert but may act aggressively in a competitive situation. Most football players are shy off the field but
are more aggressive during games as there may be positive reinforcement. As a result of situation approaches,
Martin and Lumsden (1987) put forward the idea behaviour in sport and physical education can be influenced
by changing the reinforcement. The situation approach cannot, however, predict the behaviour of the players
like the trait approach. Moreover, situations also affect people’s behaviours uniquely as not everyone’s
behaviour is the same in each situation, even if they have the same traits.

THEORIES FOR MOTIVATION

Different theories have been proposed to look at the motivation of an athlete. They look at their
competitiveness and achievement motivation and how that influences performance.

Attribution theory brings attention to how people represent their successes and failures. It was proposed by
Heider (1958). These explanations for successes and failures can be categorised as follows:
1. Stability: permanency of success and failure
2. Locus of causality: internal or external factors affecting outcome
3. Locus of control: if the factor is within one’s control
For example, one might win a football game and attribute the success to stable factor, i.e. work, talent and
ability which would increase self-esteem or an unstable factor like luck, which would decrease expectations to
succeed. Some factors can be controlled, e.g. your effort and would increase pride, while others are out of
control, such as opponent’s lack of ability. Associating success with stable and internal factors within an
athletes control leads to better performance, as well as associating failure to unstable and external factors
that couldn’t be controlled.

Attribution theory is used to describe individuals’ exercise behaviour, but the investigators (Allen, Coffee, &
Greenless, 2012) looked at team attribution. They thought team attributions are influence a number of
essential cognitive, affective and behavioural responses of groups. Attribution theory gives a good summary of
factors that affect athletes’’ expectations and emotional reactions, which directly impact achievement and
motivation.

Competence Motivation theory, proposed by Harter (1978, 1981) is used to explain differences in achievement
behaviour, especially in children. Competence motivation theory demonstrates that intrinsic or external
motivation orientations combined with reward and feedback leads to changes in self-esteem, which directly
impacts affect and motivation for a sport. For example, if a young football player feels rewarded at a good
performance, it would increase his self-confidence and make him feel happier and over time, increase his
motivation, resulting in a positive reinforcement effect. In contrast, if the player has low confidence and feels
incompetent, then s/he will get negative emotional responses such as anxiety, shame and sadness, these
feelings will lead him/her to cause lack of motivation. These also depend on whether the player is internally or
externally motivated and whether s/he is receiving positive or negative feedback.
PARTICIPATION MOTIVES
Studies have shown that different clusters of personality traits tend to gravitate towards different sports. It also
shows how playing and excelling at a particular sport can improve certain traits against a control population,
e.g. extraversion improves team sport performance while low anxiety levels improve individual sport
performance (Schurr, Ashley and Joy,1977). For example, studies comparing female athletes to non-athletic
females, suggest being more aggressive, independent, achievement orientated, emotionally stable and assertive
may be traits motivating females to pursue sports (Williams, 1980). Studies also found that having a type A
personality can also be a motivation for participation in sports as well as social expectations of such behaviour
(Weinberg & Gould, 2015; Girdano, Everly, & Dusek, 1990).

Individuals with a tendency towards perfection and competitiveness also tend to do better at sports and being
highly motivated. Such athletes set high standards for themselves and have an intrinsic motivation for
participation (Flett & Hewitt, 2005). Understanding personal motivation helps us understand goal setting (Locke
and Latham, 1990). Task goals and outcome goals can be used to increase participation.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there are many personality models to understand people and their uniqueness and they give us
great insight into what makes athletes unique. This also helps us to understand what is underlying their
motivation for hard work and success. This research on motivation can be used to help younger children and
adults who want to take part in sports. It helps us to identify which personality traits work better with which
sports and how each personality type can be motivated to do better and participate in sports and exercise to
the best of their ability.

REFERENCES
Allen, M. S., Greenlees, I. A. & Jones, M. V., 2013. Personality in sport: A comprehensive review.. International
Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, , 6(1), pp. 184-208.

Flett, G.L., & Hewitt, P.L (2005). The Perils of Perfectionism in Sports and Exercise. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 14(1), 14-18.

Freud, S., 1961. The ego and the id. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-analysis.

Gill, D. L., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise (3rd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics.

Hollander, E. P., 1968. The society of experimental social psychology: An historical note.. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, , 9(3), pp. 280-282.

Mahoney, M. J., Gabriel, T. J. & Perkins, T. S., 1987. Psychological Skills and Exceptional Athletic Performance.
Sport Psychologist, , 1(3), pp. 181-199.

Martens, R., 1975. Social psychology and physical activity. New York: Harper & Row.
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and
observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 81-90.

Schurr, K. T., Ashley, M. A., & Joy, K. J. (1977). A multivariate analysis of male athlete personality characteristics:
Sport type and success. Multivariate Experimental Clinical Research, 3(2), 53-68.

Vealey, R. S. (2002). Personality and sport behavior. In T. Horn (Ed.), Advances in sport psychology (2nd ed., pp.
43-82). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Weinberg, R. & Gould, D., 2010. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. ed. (): Human Kinetics.

Williams, J. M. (1980). Personality characteristics of the successful female athlete. In W. F. Straub (Ed.), Sport
psychology: An analysis of athlete behavior (2nd ed., pp. 353-359). Ithaca, NY: Mouvement Publications