Personality has a big role to play in achieving success in the sports world. An individual’s ability to interact with others, deal with change, and find motivation have all been linked to personality traits. More specifically, these are all functions and skills that athletes engage in to compete successfully. Although psychologists have created many schemas to study personality, the Big-Five model has become the most popular. The Big-Five model is very useful in understanding specifically how personality traits relate to athletes and their success. Composed of five traits, this model dictates that all individuals lie on a continuum for openness to change, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. 

Openness to change relates to coping with new environments and experiences. Neuroticism is the level of emotional stability and reports how individuals adjust to stressors.  Agreeableness is related to how easily and willing a person is to cooperate with others; how pleasant they are with others.  Goal orientation and discipline are measured by the trait conscientiousness.  Extraversion and agreeableness are interpersonal traits. The former defines how an individual relates to external stimulation and people interaction.

Studies have found that this Big-Five model gives us insight into coping mechanisms that athletes use and the type of traits they typically harbor. Athletes are constantly facing newness whether they are new places, opponents or obstacles. They also must be motivated and persistent. Never alone, athletes are in constant interaction with others like coaches, teammates and managers. 

Of these five trait continuums, athletes were found to be more extroverted, conscientious and less neurotic than non-athletes. In other words, athletes are more sociable, achievement-oriented and emotionally stable. Furthermore, when athletes competing at different levels of difficulty, elite athletes competing at more advanced levels were specifically found to have higher levels of extraversion, emotional stability and conscientiousness.

Even so, we see variance in personality depending on the sport. There are individual sports and team sports, which require different skillsets and attitudes. Team sports undoubtedly involve more interpersonal interaction. Not surprisingly, athletes in team sports tend to be more extraverted than athletes in individual sports. Communication and collaboration with others are key for team sports. Additionally, while conscientiousness was much higher in athletes of individual sports, athletes participating in team sports were found to be much more agreeable.  Allen, Greenlees & Jones 2013 break this down:

“Trust, one of the components of agreeableness, as an interpersonal factor helps the individual so that he/she can rely on others more easily and develop the group activities and relationships. Team sports provide a suitable ground for achieving this characteristic. Accordingly, agreeableness based on trust prepares the individual for team sports. Altruism is another factor of agreeableness. Tendency for loving and assisting prepares the individual for taking care of another one’s business and cooperating in team activities. In sport activities, team sports more than individual sports prepare the grounds for achieving and accomplishing this characteristic. Compliance, one of the other components of agreeableness, is by nature an interpersonal factor. This factor simultaneously distances the individual from himself/herself and brings him/her near to the others.”

Supporting this further, senior basketball players in particular were found to have agreeableness as a dominant trait.

Another level of nuance in the relationship between team sports and personality is found in the position that an athlete plays within that sport. More specifically, different personality traits are emphasized between players that are in more offensive positions as opposed to players in defensive positions. Some research has found that extraversion is stronger in offensive players and defensive players. Conscientiousness was found highest in goalies, and neuroticism as lowest in defensive athletes.

The question remains on whether people are born with these traits or they develop them through life experiences. Researchers studied personality using the Big-Five framework in adult twins in Germany and found that 40% were influenced by genes while the remaining 60% were environmental, and this more so from non-shared environments. In conclusion, “the combined effects of genes and environmental influences (e.g. social support) should have the greatest influence on athletic success.” 

That’s why I have partnered with a leader in corporate talent identification software, and converted it into a sport talent model, called F.A.S.T (Future Advantage Scouting Talent). F.A.S.T. is the only platform combining player performance and personality stats.

References

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

Borkenau, P., Riemann, R., Angleitner, A., & Spinath, FM (2001). Genetic and environmental influences on observed personality: evidence from the German Observational Study of Adult Twins. J Pers Soc Psychol 80(4), 655-68.

Niaa, Etemadi, & Besharata, Mohammad Ali (2010). Comparison of athletes’ personality characteristics in individual and team sports. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5, 808–812.

Sindik, Joško (2011). Differences between top senior basketball players from different team positions in big five personality traits. Acta Kinesiologica 5, 31-35.