Of all the “Big Five” personality traits, the five main qualities in which psychologists consider to make up an individual’s distinct persona, neuroticism is the only one that seems to carry a real negative connotation. You seldom find someone who appreciates being referred to as a neurotic individual, and hardly hear the word being used as a compliment. With all of the research that exists backing up the theory that athletics fosters more desirable personality traits, it should come as no surprise that athletes, as represented by a number of studies, exhibit lower levels of the neuroticism trait than do their non-athlete counterparts.
Before diving further into the information surrounding the neuroticism trait and athletes, some background on the trait itself is necessary. Someone with a neurotic personality is usually more tightly wound, often highly stressed, and is more prone to worrying and anxiety. They also have a tendency to over-analyze situations that wouldn’t be looked at twice by most people. Highly neurotic individuals tend to experience negative emotions more easily than those low in neuroticism. Six sub-traits exist to the larger trait of neuroticism: anxiety, depression, vulnerability, immoderation, anger, and self-consciousness. People who are high in neuroticism are typically high in most or all of these sub-traits.
As mentioned above, the word “neuroticism” carries a negative connotation. Some dictionaries even provide as a direct synonym to neuroticism, the phrase, “mental illness.” As such, a common alternative to the word “neuroticism” to describe the personality trait is the phrase “emotional stability.” Merriam-Webster dictionary even defines the word “neurotic” as, “an emotionally unstable individual.” So, emotional stability is actually the flip-side to neuroticism. An individual high in neuroticism is low in emotional stability and vice versa. Those high in emotional stability (aka low in neuroticism) react less emotionally and are upset less easily.
As touched upon in the beginning of the article, athletes have been shown time and time again to express lower levels of neuroticism than non-athletes. Given the negative views on the neuroticism trait, this is a good thing for athletes and should transfer positively not only to their sport, but also to day-to-day life. One question concerning this fact, however, is whether or not emotionally stable individuals simply are attracted to athletics or if participating in sports develops this trait appropriately. While several studies have been done on this, the jury still seems to be out on the subject. What the results do seem to show is that it might be a little bit of both. Multiple studies show that people low in neuroticism might have a pre-disposition to becoming athletes. On the flip side, a study done on personality traits in contact-sport athletes presented a downward trend in neuroticism levels of the athletes over the course of the study, which lasted four years in time. This could mean that the more time an athlete participates in his or her sport, the more they decrease their overall levels of neuroticism, becoming more emotionally stable over time. Speaking in favor of this theory, think about young athletes versus older athletes. Obviously people mature with age, but you are much more likely to see athletes with neurotic tendencies at the younger age levels than in competitive adult athletics.
Levels of neuroticism fluctuate, to a degree, by sport as well. While no significant difference was found between contact and non-contact sports, one study on athletes from a certain country that competed at the national level found that endurance athletes, sprinters, and futsal players exhibited much lower levels of neuroticism than taekwando participants (who still had lower neuroticism levels than non-athletes). What this can be interpreted as is, perhaps, that certain sports require a degree of neuroticism, or that different sports attract athletes based on their neuroticism levels. Interestingly enough, while neuroticism levels might vary by sport, there does not seem to be a difference, unlike most of the other Big Five traits, when it comes to levels of neuroticism in athletes of team sports versus individual sports. This is important because it means that low levels of the neuroticism trait are universal among athletes of all sports, opposed to the other Big Five traits where high expression of a trait was good for one type of sport when low expression was good for another. This exemplifies the importance of the lack of neuroticism among athletes of all kinds, perhaps making it a more important trait to hone in on.
Yet, a study done on personality traits in the workplace found that those higher in neuroticism performed better and were more valuable in team-based tasks. It seems odd that outside of athletics, neuroticism can be beneficial in team activities but team sport athletes don’t express higher levels of neuroticism. More research should be done to figure out if there is a connection there. Also, it is important to note that better leaders have been found to have lower levels of neuroticism. Perhaps the leaders, or captains, on teams are able to balance out the higher neuroticism of their teammates.
Although there is more research to be done on the relationship between the trait of neuroticism and sports, two main conclusions can be made off of the consistent research that is available. First, that athletes display lower levels of neuroticism compared to their non-athlete counterparts. Second, there is no difference seen between team sport athletes and individual sport athletes in levels of the neuroticism trait. Thus, it appears to be beneficial for athletes across all sports to be emotionally stable and less neurotic. Testing high for neuroticism is not an automatic red flag. In fact, the F.A.S.T. software platform combines the influences from specific nature-nurture variables to determine how neuroticism may positively or negatively impact performance in a specific environment.