The Role of Personality in Sport:
Conceptual and Methodological
Challenges
Eugene V. Aidman
University of Adelaide, Australia
The Science of Personality

we are:
– different from anyone else (uniqueness)
– remain ourselves across situations (consistency)




These differences are measurable
Thurstone’s law: if something exists, it exists in some
amount and can therefore be measured
Personality research: study of measurable individual differences –
but what are they?
Situation-free dispositions (i.e. aggregated across time) vs
situationally hedged dispositions = conditional and interactive
with the situations in which they are expressed (Mischel, 2004)
Personality & Sport

Compared to non-sport playing controls on
16PF, national level competitors are (Williams,
1985):
–
–
–
–

higher emotional stability
greater mental toughness
more self-assured
more trusting
Getting into an Olympic squad in wrestling
(Silva et al., 1985) linked to (16PF) sociability,
boldness, emotional stability and apprehension
Mood States and Performance

Morgan & Hammer (1974) - Terry (2000)
better performing athletes display more
positive mental states:
– less anxious
– less depressed
– less fatigued
– less confused
– more vigorous (and extroverted)
Mental health profile
Positive Mental Health Profile: (Morgan
& Johnson, 1978) found lower levels of
psychopathology (MMPI) in more
successful University oarsmen
 However: hardly any replication

– e.g. Brown, Morgan & Kihlstrom (1989)
found no significant associations between
MMPI profiles of collegiate athletes and
their athletic success
Anxiety and Performance
Levels - high vs low - are insufficient
 state - trait anxiety (Spielberger)
 cognitive appraisal of threat:

– facilitative anxiety: stress response as
excitement
– debilitative anxiety: stress response as
threatening
Personality & Achievement

Davis & Mogk (1994) compared elite,
sub-elite, non-elite and non-athletes on
EPQ, Sensation-seeking and
Achievieng Tendency scales:
– the key factors linked to the level of
competitive achievment:
• emotional stability
• and achievment motivation
Personality and success

Piedmont, Hill & Blanco (1999): coach
ratings of performance and game stats
linked to the Big Five profiles of elite
soccer players:
– Neuroticism / emotional stability
– Conscientiousness / «will to achieve»
– acceptance of criticism: «coachability», in
turn linked to higher self-esteem
Personality and Performance

Origins in Org- and Ed- psychology:
selecting for success

Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF;
Raymark & Schmidt, 1997):
– based on the Big Five model (McRae & Costa, 1992)
– found personality factors predictive of job
performance based on specific competencies (job
needs analysis)

Sport Psychology is yet to follow PPRF’s lead
Personality and Sport
Performance

sceptical vs credulos debate (Morgan, 1980)
– Personality is a weak predictor of Sport Performance
– but it is a Predictor



Weak theory - wrong place to look for connections
Weak method - hopeless in catching a connection
even if there was one (insufficient design)
The connection is unlikely to be DIRECT and
IMMEDIATE
The Role of Personality in Sport & Exercise


in the long run:
converting ability into achievement
from promice to delivery
– sub-elite to elite sport transition

«here and now»:
moderating the effects of circumstances
on performance
•
•
•
•
stress tolerance -vs- anxiety volatile
motivated -vs- slack: e.g. winning from behind
focused -vs- all over the place
injury pronene - hardy
Example 1: Personality in Long Term Achievement
Elite Juniors’ transition to Senior AFL (Aidman, 2004)
Method




32 elite junior players from a leading Australian Football
League (AFL) club: mean age 17.8 (1.1)
players profiled with Cattell’s 16PF (Form A) at the peak of
their junior playing career – immediately after the season
where they won the National Championship in their age
group.
Head Coach rated players’ performance and physical
potential (5-point Likert scales)
7-year follow-up: has the player made it to senior
AFL(drafted+played at least one season) or not ?
Results




13 players made it into senior AFL competition
19 others ended up playing minor leagues or
dropped out of the game altogether
MANOVA showed no significant differences
between these two groups of players on primary
personality factor profiles
when the players’ physical potential rated by their
junior head coach was controlled for in an
MANCOVA, the differences between the groups
became highly significant: both on multivariate estimates
(F (16, 14) = 3.506; p = .012) and on a number of individual factors
Results: Group Differences
ELITE JUNIOR AFL PLAYER PROFILE
10
9
8
stens
7
6
Mean
5
4
3
2
1
A B C E F G H
I
L M N O Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
16PF primary factors
Results: Group Differences
G
Q1
Q2
Q4
did not make it to senior
AFL
Mean
SD
11.74
2.86
10.16
3.72
8.84
2.03
12.53
5.65
Successful transition
to senior AFL
Mean
SD
13.38
3.20
8.00
3.58
6.92
2.29
9.23
2.71
MANCOVA
differences
p
.08
.018
.003
.048
Personality in Long Term AFL Success:
Elite Juniors’ transition to Senior AFL
Coach Ratings ONLY:
Compare with flipping a coin
16 Personality Factors Profile ONLY
16 Personality Factors Profile +
ONE Coach Rating (physical potential):
Aidman (1999, 2000)
Predicting senior AFL
performance from personality
Prediction targets:
2. aggregate of senior
achievement over the last 5
seasons (Alpha=.96)
% variance explained
1. performance in junior
championship at the time of
testing
99
100
75
61
50
25
11
0
3. coach rating on a 5-point
scale: "struggling vs cruising
through senior league ranks"
1
2
Prediction targets
3
Conclusions:


Confirmed the influence of Personality
factors on sub-elite to elite sport transition in
AFL
however, this influence is
– indirect
– observable only in the long term

Interaction with Ability:
– Ability (physique in AFL) = entry ticket
– Personality acts as a means of converting
ability into achievement (from a promicing junior to an
accomplished athlete)
Example 2: Personality and
on-the-day performance prediction
(Aidman & Beckerman, 2001)

Specific personality characteristics implicated:
–
–
–
–
–
Emotional stability
Achievement orientation
Conscientiousness (e.g., discipline)
Self-concept (e.g., confidence)
Anxiety
Method


Participants: 48 Australian Rules football players (M = 21.40
years, SD = 3.11 years) who played a full season with a
successful Victorian Football League (VFL) club
Instruments:
–
–
–
–

Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; McCrae & Costa, 1992)
Self-Apperception Test (SAT-2; Aidman, 1997, 1999)
Self-Liking/Self-Competence Scale (SLCS; Tafarodi & Swann, 1995)
Stress Appraisal Questionnaire: Threatening versus Exciting
Procedure
– Aggregated game statistics across a complete season 
– ‘Credits’ score representing the effort and quality of performance for
each player in every game
Results

Three distinct groups of
players identified:

groups were found to be
predictably different on:
– Self-discipline
– Achievement Striving
– Neuroticism (Fig. 1)
mean scores
– elite (senior players)
– non-elite (reserves)
– sub-elite (“swingers” – players
who played at both levels)
20
18
16
14
12
10
player group:
8
seniors
6
sw ingers
4
reser ves
neuroticism
dutifulness
achievement self-discipline
Results: Interaction between personality
and situation in the prediction of effort

Three categories of games identified:
– ‘Close Games” - in dispute for almost the entirety of the game
– ‘Easy Wins’ - where the result was well in the team’s favour
most of the way and no longer in dispute
– ‘Bad Losses’ - where the team was well beaten most of the
way and no longer in the contest

Hierarchical Regression predicting game performance:
– “easy win” games predictors: Self-discipline and Neuroticism
– “close” games predictors: Neuroticism and Self-esteem
– “bad losses” - no connection
Table 1. Game performance (‘Credits’) (SD)
Across Three Game types, by Stress Appraisal
Threatene
d
Appraisal
Low
High
Excitement
Appraisal
Close Game
Easy Win
Bad Loss
Low
4.762 (0.811)
5.452 (0.818)
5.590 (0.823)
High
4.217 (0.796)
4.383 (0.803)
4.376 (0.808)
Low
3.744 (0.817)
3.950 (0.824)
2.756 (0.829)
high
4.696 (0.513)
4.592 (0.517)
4.385 (0.520)
Stress appraisal and game performance
6
Low threatening Low
Exciting
Low threatening High
Exciting
Low threatening High
Exciting
High threatening Low
Exciting
High threatening High
Exciting
5
4
3
2
1
0
Close Game
Easy Win
Bad Loss
Example 3: Self-esteem and Performance
(Meagher & Aidman, 2004)
Three aspects of Self:

Cognitive: self-attributions
• bright, attractive, athletic, slow etc.

Affective: how we feel about these self-attributions
(evaluation)
• self-esteem = affective avaluation of self (Martens, 1975)

Behavioural: our tendencies to behave in
accordance with self-image
• Self-concept as self-fulfillling prophecy: self-concept is more
than self-descriptions, its a commitment to continue being
oneself “as described”
Rationale for Indirect Measurement of Self
Global self-attitudes vs self-descriptions
 self-presentation distortions

–
–

deliberate (faking, impression management)
self-deceptions (genuine)
affective / implicit elements of Self
–
–
–
displaced self-esteem (Cialdini, 1993)
self-positivity bias (Taylor & Brown, 1988)
implicit affiliation / rejection
(Tesser, 1988; Suls & Wills, 1991)
Indirect Measurement of Self-Attitudes:
Essential Ingredients


Responce latencies in mixed category
discrimination tasks (IAT; Greenwald et al. 1998)
(semi) projective stimulation relevant to Selfimage
– fuzzy images (Ligett, 1959) / facial sketches (Aidman, 1999)

replicable procedure:
–

semantic differential (Snider &Osgood, 1969)
Relevant self-attitude scales:
–
–
global (self-worth, self-competence)
specific (ability, attractiveness, strength...)
Self-reported vs indirect self-appraisal and elite
swimmers’ performance (Aidman & Perry, 2000)
Method: Participants

38 elite Australian swimmers (15
females and 23 males, mean age 20.1
years, SD = 2.84) participated as part of
their preparation program for the 1998
World Championship
Method: Instruments
Self-Liking/Self-Competence Scale
(Tafarodi & Swann, 1995)
Cronbach’s alphas: .92 for self-liking
.89 for self-competence
 Self-Apperception Test (SAT; Aidman, 1999) –
measuring implicit self-appraisal (ISA)
Cronbach’s alpha: .83-.90 for Global ISA
(retest reliability 0.57 - 0.84)

Method: Procedure



Self-appraisal measures taken 3 months and
1 week prior to the competition (time 1)
ISP (international performance ratings
devised by FINA) recorded at time 1 and
immediately after the competition
implicit self-attitudes hypothesised to predict
ISP change (positive self-affect to be
associated with gains in ISP)
Declared and Implicit Self-Appraisal:
correlations with World ranknings (ISP)
Implicit self-strength
r = .33
p < .05
Declared self-liking
r = .02
Ns
Declared self-competence r = .04
Ns
Declared and Implicit Self-Appraisal:
correlations with pre-post competition change
in swimmers’ ISP
Implicit self-appraisal
of ability (combined
with its valence)
r = .59
2
R =.35
p < .01
Declared self-liking
r = -.2
Ns
Declared self-competence r = .12
Ns
Conclusions




Declared self-attitudes DID NOT predict
performance improvement at World
Championship
Implict self-appraisal of ability DID, consistent
with the theoretical prediction
Implict self-appraisal of strength was directly
(although weakly) associated with ISP
none of declared self-esteem scores were
Conclusions cont’d



Self-affect is conceptually and meaningfully
linked to athletes’ ability to perform at their best
Self-affect measurement may play an important
role in predicting athletic performance at elite
level
But in order to fulfill this role, predictions should
be (a) specific, (b) conceptually driven, and
(c) matched to an adequate method of
measurement (i.e. implicit rather than declared)
Overall Conclusions

personality effects are likely to be
– Long term (e.g. converting ability into
achievement)
– Moderating rather than direct (e.g., moderating the
effects of circumstances on performance)


Situation is more than a source of noise in
personality measurement – it is a key
ingredient of it: “if… then…” behavioural
signatures (Mischel, 2004)
Types of situations with psychologically
equivalent meaning (e.g., frustration)
– Must be very specific
– Theory driven
Epilogue: behavioural signatures of aggression
not an aggregate aggression score, but a profile of
aggressive responding
“if… then…” (Mischel, 2004)
Unprovoked attacks - Aggression as an
intrinsic choice
 Retaliatory attacks - i.e. «tooth for tooth»
 Frustration-driven attacks - lashing out at an
obstacle
 escalation: mastering an aggressive response
may / may not translate to its greater use


Computer-game-embedded assessment
(Aidman & Shmelyov, 2002)
Interaction types in reverse desirability order
–
–
–
–

hosts
Avatar is attacked
avatar
Avatar’s path blocked
Mimics game
Avatar is allowed through

Stimulus material: schematized
Avatar is allowed through with a smiling greeting and extra power)
facial universals (Ekman, 1999)
Objectives of the game:
– reach desired destination
– score maximum points along the way
– can be achieved through any combination of:
– searching for effective expressions
– searching for efficient routes
– attacking the hosts




– player is free to choose the tactics
(may be prompted by instruction)
–

Avatar - player controlled
expression
Hosts - human-like responding
to the Avatar’s expressions
objective = negotiate
a maze-like matrix of hosts for
a reward :-)
Controllable elements
of expression:
– mouth
– eyes
– eybrows
each element can be made:
–
–
–
smiling
neutral
frowning
independently of the other two
Mimics measures






rate of unprovoked attacks (aggression as an intrinsic choice)
rate of retaliatory attacks (aggression mirroring)
frustration-driven attacks (aggressive over-reaction to blockings)
threatening: choosing a frowning expression
intrapunitive / avoidant responding to aggression, e.g. evasion
Overall - 26 measures 70
based on automated 60
standardized
50
observations
psychopath
40
neurotic
evangelist
balanced
30
20
10
0
unprovoked
retaliatory
frustrationdriven
Unprovoked attacks under Peaceful and
Open instructions
30
Self-reported
aggression
(Buss-Perry total):
25
20
low
high
15
10
5
0
peaceful
open
instruction
Retaliatory attacks under Peaceful and
Open instructions
70
Self-reported
aggression
(Buss-Perry total):
60
50
40
low
high
30
20
10
0
peaceful
open
instruction
Frustration-driven attacks under Peaceful
and Open instructions
70
Self-reported
aggression
(Buss-Perry total):
60
50
40
low
high
30
20
10
0
peaceful
open
instruction
Correlations between Self-reported Aggression and
Changes in Mimics parameters
from Peaceful to Open Instruction (N=37)
Bjorkvist et al., 1993
Aggression mesures
Buss .& Perry, 1992
physical verbal Indirect social Indirect ratio physical verbal anger hostility
Mimics measures
Unprovoked attacks
.06
.18
.12
.29
.05
.14
-.04
-.19
Retaliatory attacks
-.17
-.03
-.08
-.04
-.01
.16
.22
-.17
Aggressive out-reaction
.41**
.25
.27
.49**
.45**
.15
.42**
.29
Evasion
-.22
-.16
.01
-.07
-.14
-.32*
-.17
-.14
Selected References
Greenwald, A.G., McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J.K.L.
(1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit
Aidman, E.V. (1999). Measuring individual
differences in implicit self-concept: initial validation cognition: the Implicit Association Test. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.
of the self-apperception test. Personality and
Individual Differences, 27, 211-228.
Kihlstrom, J. (1999, September). The discovery of the
Aidman, E. & Carroll, S. (2003) Implicit
unconscious. Paper presented at the meeting of the
Individual Differences: Relationships between
Australian Psychological Society, Hobart, Tasmania.
Implicit Self-Esteem, Gender Identity and Gender
Meagher, B., & Aidman, E. (2004) Individual
Attitudes. European Journal of Personality, 17 (1),
Differences in Implicit and Declared Self-Esteem as
19-37.
Aidman, E., & Shmelyov, A.(2002). Mimix: a Predictors of Response to Negative Performance
symbolic conflict/cooperation simulation program, Evaluation: Validating Implicit Association Test as a
with embedded protocol recording and automatic Measure of Self-Attitudes. International Journal of
Testing,4 (1),19-42.
psychometric assessment. Behavior Research
Methods, Instruments & Computers, 34 (1), 83-89.
Tafarodi, R.W., & Swann, W.B. (1995). Self-liking and selfBaumeister, R.F., (1999) Low self-esteem
competence as dimensionality of global self-esteem: initial
does not cause aggression. APA Monitor, 30 (1) ,
validation of a measure. Journal of Personality
7.
Assessment, 65, 322-342.
Baumeister, R.F., Heatherton, T.F., & Tice,
Tallent R., & Aidman E. (1995). The impact of
D.M. (1993). When ego threats lead to selfregulation failure: Negative consequences of high residential status upon quality of life in elderly women.
1995 APS Conference, abstracted: Australian Journal of
self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 47 (supplement), p. 119.
Psychology, 64, 141-156.