Personality Flashcards
What is Personality
The sum of characteristics that make a person unique
Psychological Core
Deep, basic component - Attitudes, values, beliefs (Constant & Internal)
Typical Responses
Typical adjustments to the environment - eg Shy
Role-Related Behaviour
How you act in a specific situation - eg parent, student, friend (Dynamic & External)
Psychodynamic approach
- Believes unconscious determinants (instinctive drives) + Conscience aspects (ego) combine too form Behaviour
- Understanding a person as a whole rather than isolating traits
Psychodynamic approach - Pros & Cons
Pros - displays importance of unconscious determinants
Cons - focuses entirely on internal determinants
Trait approach
- Behaviour relatively stable, traits predispose actions regardless of situation eg Competitiveness
Trait approach - Pros & Cons
Pros - emphasises the importance of traits
Cons - Does not factor in the situation/environment
Situational approach
- Behaviour largely determined by situation & environment (observational learning & social reinforcement links)
Situation approach - Pros & Cons
Pros - Importance of the environmental influence
Cons - disregards internal factors
Interactional approach
- Psychological traits and environmental factors codetermine behaviour
- Preferred theory of S & E Psychologists
Interactional approach - Pros & Cons
Pros - considers internal and external factors
Cons - none
Phenomenological approach
- Same as interactional approach + influence of how the individual interpretants themselves and the situation
Phenomenological approach - Pros & Cons
Pros - considers both factors and can explain unique behaviours in athletes
Cons - None
Perfectionism & 4 dimensions
- Personality style of setting v high standards & striving for them
- Personal standards
- Concern over mistakes
- Perceived parental pressure
- Perceived coach pressure
Maladaptive/unhealthy Perfectionism
- focus on high standards and also concern of mistakes & evaluation, leads to = over training & poor performance
Adaptive/healthy Perfectionism
- focus of high standards wo/ excess worry = Better learning & performance
Measuring personality goals
- Attempting too understand the personality - performance link
- Sport specific measures are better than general personality tests for predicting behaviour
Sport-Specific measures examples
- Sport competition anxiety test - measures competitive trait anxiety (Martens 1977)
- Competitive state anxiety inventory - measures pre comp state anxiety (Martens, Burton et al 1982)
- Trait-State confidence inventory - measures sports confidence(Vealey 1986)
Principles of testing & Measurement error
- Tests aren’t perfect and making predicts based of their results is unethical (don’t pick teams off results)
- Measurement errors could be due to age or ethical differences between the people being tested and the intended participants
- Athletes may lie on tests
- Confidentiality
Research findings - Personality & Gender
- There are links between personality and performance but they cannot be perfectly explained
- Consistent personality differences distinguish athletes & non athletes but this differences are small
- little difference between elite athletes of both genders
Morgan’s mental health model & Profiles of mood states (POMS)
- Positive mental health as assessed by the POMS score has a direct link too athletic success
- Iceberg profile - high vigour low tension, depression, anger, fatigue
POMS uses
SHOULDN'T - be used for team selection SHOULD - monitor mindset - identify problems - improve mood
Big 5 Personality traits
Neuroticism (nervousness, anxiety, anger)
Extraversion (enthusiasm, sociability, assertiveness)
Openness too experience (originality, curiosity)
Agreeableness (modesty, amiability)
Conscientiousness (constraint, self discipline)
