Describe theories relating to personality and how they affect sports performance. Evaluate critically, personality profiling in sport.

Personality is the sum of a person’s individual characteristics that make him/her unique. (Adams et al, 2010) A person’s personality determines how they react in certain situations, their general mood and the consistency of it and their emotions. Personality can affect many aspects of sport right from the selection process because as well as raw talent, coaches need performers to have good mentality to be able to reach their required potential.

Personality is one of the concepts that often be used by social scientists.According to Schultz (2009), “Personality can be defined as the unique, relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a person’s character that influence behaviour in different situations”. In general, personality theories can be classified based on four major approaches which are psychoanalytic theory, trait theory, social learning theory, and humanistic theory (Refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from

Psychology is argued to be the scientific study of the human mind and behaviour. So the obvious question can be asked, what is sport and exercise psychology? According to Gill and Williams (2008), sport and exercise psychology is the scientific study of people and their behaviours in sport and exercise context and the practical applications of that knowledge. In hindsight, what sport psychology does is take psychological theories and applies them to sport. Examples of these are: personality, imagery, aggression, motivation, skill acquisition and many more. Therefore, this essay will provide an insight to how mainstream psychology such as personality and behaviourism can be applied to sport.

In psychology, there are four major theories of personality: psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory primarily focuses on the role of the unconscious mind. The social cognitive theory focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and is based on theories of learning. Whereas, the humanistic theory emphasizes conscious life experiences and choices. The trait or five-factor model focuses on characteristics themselves and not the roots of personality.

Personality is looked at everyday purposely and accidently. Whether you are judging how your new professor for the semester will be, or if you are studying your best friend for a project, personality is studied abundantly. While there are many ways to define personality, there is not a worldwide definition around. Personality is the unique combination of patterns that influence behavior, thought, motivation, and emotion in a human being (boundless.com). That is one of many ways of defining personality. When examining personality, there are four main approachable theories including: The Psychodynamic Approach, The Trait Approach, The Social-Cognitive Approach, and The Humanistic Approach.

There are many theories that have been created to help try and explain how personality

The field of sports psychology is only beginning. A short while ago in 1898 an experiment that was conducted by Norman Triplett successfully discovered a positive correlation between a biker’s performance and a social component or audience. Since then the only major progress has been the sports psychology lab established at the University of Illinois in 1925. The man responsible for the lab Coleman Griffith has also offered courses that teach the nature of sports psychology. Griffith’s research focuses on the factors that effect athletic performance such as “reaction time, mental awareness, muscular tension and relaxation, and personality”. Fortunately, a new study has surfaced the Psychology

The ultimate quest for sport psychologists is to establish what psychological factors produce the winning formula or to try to establish a profile of the successful athlete. Within the psychological framework attempts, to determine the "ideal athletic personality" have only been marginally successful (Morgan 1980, in White, 1993). One of the categories observed in order to understand and move towards the 'ideal athletic personality' is that of Psychological Skills Training (PST), "It is contended that mental skills training is a significant part of sport psychology and is of particular importance to athletes and coaches" (Rushall, 1995, p0.3).

Myths are commonly taken as fact when it comes to many of these areas of sport psychology. Coaches, teachers, and athletes will never change unless they inspect or are taught the facts and research behind these various theories and behaviors. This can be a large problem for those athletes who are instructed incorrectly, and it could potentially damage their futures in athletic competitions.

There are four major personality theories: psychodynamic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. The humanistic theory focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development. The social-cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of both learning and cognitive processes play an important role in personality. Whereas, the trait theory is more concerned with the end result of personality as well as the characteristics themselves.

Preparing internally for athletics is unique for each individual, and sport psychology has aided many amateurs to become professional athletes. Although physical ability does play a large role in athletics, sport psychology is the most important component when

Ansel, 2012, 5th ed.). Describing can be defined as “in the present (sport) context as the process of detecting and observing sport performance that reflects research literature” (Mark H. Ansel, 2012, 5th ed.). Explaining can be defined as “the process of determining the association between certain characteristics experienced or observed during competition and the specific outcomes (Mark H. Ansel, 2012, 5th ed.). Lastly, predicting can be described as “the degree of accuracy with which a researcher, practitioner, or coach can accurately anticipate a performance outcome given the presence, and, sometimes, interaction, of one or more factors” (Mark H. Ansel, 2012, 5th ed.) According to Mark H. Ansel (2012, 5th ed.), sport/exercise psychologists’ main concerns are to understand the factors that help explain reaching

Of note, while the references and resources involving athletes and athletics are limited, there is existing research that connects personality

Personality is the sum of a person’s individual characteristics that make him/her unique. (Adams et al, 2010) A person’s personality determines how they react in certain situations, their general mood and the consistency of it and their emotions. Personality can affect many aspects of sport right from the selection process because as well as talent, coaches need performers to have good mentality to be able to reach their required potential.