Arron White Sports Psychology

Sports Psychology

Aaron White

Define Personality

Personality is who you are and it consists of everything you believe in and the way you are around different people or groups. The personality has many different opinions of what personality activity is, one of the definitions are ‘the complex of all the attributes, behavioural, temperamental, emotions and mental characterises of every unique individual’. I like this definition because of how it individualises each and every person. Another  definition of personality is ‘ Relatively stable, consistent and distinctive set of mental and emotional characteristics a person exhibits when alone or when talking to people in their external environment’.

                

Martens Schematic View

This is split into three different levels that are all related to each other. The first level is Psychological Core which is the part that contains your beliefs, values, attitudes and interests. The second one is Typical Responses which is what or how you react or respond to someone or something. The third one is Role related behaviour which is your behaviour determined by the situations you find yourself in.

Interactional Approach (Hollander’s Model, 1971)

Hollander’s theory states that behaviour is a combination of both inherited personality and environmental factors. He found this through the equation of:

B=F (P.E)        

Behaviour is the Function of Personality and Environment

By investigating how athletes react to certain situations it is possible to put into place interventions and strategies to address the behaviour. The interactional approach suggests that we base behaviour on inherent traits that we adapt to the situations we are in. It also takes into account personal factors, the situation in which the behaviour occurs and the interaction of the two factors. A game player might be loud, extrovert and dominate manner in the game because that is the best way to succeed, but would be more quiet and forced when at training designed to improve technical behaviour.

Trait Approach

The trait approach is a relatively stable and enduring characteristic which could be used to protect our behaviour in a verity of situations. Theorists such as Eysenck and Cattell argued that personality is mostly inherited. There are 4 different dimensions of personality, the first one is…

Introvert When people are introvert this means they are quiet, fond of reading and books rather than people. They always plan ahead and they don’t like the excitement and take issues and matters of everyday life with the upmost seriousness. They also keep their feelings under control and don’t loose their temper easily.

Extrovert When a person is extrovert this means they are the opposite to introvert. They are the more social people with lots of friends that like parties. They always need people to speak to and they crave excitement and like to take chances. They are the very talkative and merry side of people that love to have a laugh and they never sit still. They tend to be the more aggressive and unlike an introvert they loose their temper easily and quickly. They aren’t always the most reliable people and don’t like to keep their feelings under control or to themselves.

Neurotic This is the sort of person that is a worried and anxious individual with a frequently depressed and moody personality. They are more likely to have a worse sleeping pattern with a better chance of suffering of various disorders. They are normally more likely to get really over emotional and react strongly to some or all types of situations and sometimes they can become over aroused in stressful and demanding situations.

Stability These sorts of people are evenly tempered, emotionally stable and easy going.

Evaluation

There has been some criticism about the overall worth of the trait approach theory to personality and some suggest that the traits of personality aren’t a good predictor of future behaviours (MISCHEL, 1973). The trait theory doesn’t take into account the development and nurture of an athlete, as well as taking into account the added environment and situations of the athletes. With is being a very simple test to undertake it means that it is a poor and unreliable prediction of behaviour.

Situations Approach

Personality is built up from our experiences of the social world (Bandura, 1977). Bandura believes that that we learn from two types of experience MODELLING and REINFORCEMENT. As we grow up we observe what other people do and copy it, this is classed as modelling but when we do something right and get rewarded for it we are more likely to do it again this is known as reinforcement.

Bandura realised that the performer may appear confident and aggressive in a specific situation but may appear very different in another environment

 Attention

Paying attention to the model is a condition of learning

Retention

Remembering what a model did is a condition for imitating the models behaviour

Motor Reproduction

People must have the skill to imitate the behaviour

 Motivational Responses

People must be motivated to imitate the behaviour

Psychodynamic Theory

In the late 1800's and early 1900's, Freud developed a technique that he called psychoanalysis and used it to treat mental disorders. Psychodynamic theory is a view that explains personality in the terms of conscious, preconscious and unconscious. Sigmund Freud suggested that this theory of personality consisted of an id and this is the one that is responsible for the instinct and pleasure then there is the superego which obeys the rules of parent and society and then there is the ego which balances between the two according to the demanding of reality. Psychodynamic theories stand to this day that how or what you did in your childhood shape your personality.

Conscious is the part of you that contains all the information that a person is paying attention to at all given time.

Preconscious is the part of you that contains all the information outside of a persons attention but readily available if needed.

Unconscious is the part of you that contains thoughts, feelings, desires and memories of which people have no awareness but that influences every aspects of their day to day life.

Motivation

Motivation is the direction and intensity of one’s efforts. The direction is where you move towards or away from something and intensity is how much effort a person puts forth. There is a relationship between direction and intensity.

Trait centred views

Most people fit motivation into 1 of 3 general orientations that parallel the approaches to personality. Trait centred views (participant-centred view) motivated behaviour is a result of individual characteristics. E.g. personality, needs, goals will determine behaviour.

Some people have attributes (goals and desires) that predispose them to be more motivated. However environmental influences must be considered in real life.

The situation centred views

Motivation level is determined by situation. Students love step aerobics but dislikes running. Sometimes you can overcome a poor situation. E.g. have a bad coach and you will still work hard.

  

Interactional Views

This shows how situations and trait interact. The participant’s motivation is dependent on how the situation and trait interact (leader, coach, facilities, attractions and whether teams win or lose).

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is doing it because you enjoy doing something and extrinsic motivation is doing it because you have people wanting you to.

Working Motivation in crowdsourcing

Intrinsic                                                                                                             Extrinsic

Enjoyment based on motivation                                                     Immediate payoff

Community based on motivation                                                   Delayed payoff

                                                                                                            Social Motivation

Group Process

There must be interaction between individuals in order for them to be classed as a team. The team have to get on (interpersonal attraction) and there needs to be some form of collective identity. The members of the group must perceive themselves to be a distinct unit that is different to other groups. The groups must have shared goals, targets norms and values and be prepared to achieve these goals collectively. All of these characteristics are common in terms but there are some key differences between a group and a team. The main difference relates to the pursuit of shared goals and objectives, both within teams and for the individual.

For a group to be classed as a team, the members need to depend on each other and offer support to each other in order to try to achieve team goals and the members will interact with each other to accomplish these goals and objective.

Forming is where the group gets together and a level of formally is common.

Storming is where heightened tension associated with competition for status and influences

Norming is where the rules and standards of behaviour are agreed

Performing is where group matters to a point where it is able to work together as a team

Steiner’s model of group productivity

Steiner suggests that a team is more than an individual talents coming together. He suggested that group productivity could be measured by this equation.

Actual productivity = potential productivity – losses of due to faulty group process.

Cohesion

Cohesion is a dynamic process that is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its goal and objective.

Social Cohesion relates to how well the team members enjoy each other’s company.

Task Cohesion this relates to how well groups or a team work together to achieve a common goal and objective.

Both influence performance but task cohesion is needed more in sport.

The 4 factors of cohesion

Environmental factors are groups that are closer to each other and smaller tend to be more cohesive as the members have greater opportunities to interact and form relationships.

Personal factors are the individual characteristics of group members are important in a group cohesion. If they have the same backgrounds etc then there will be more satisfaction among the group members and the team will be more likely to be more cohesive.

Leadership factors leadership style, behaviour, communication styles and compatibility of the coach and athletes personal and key leadership factors that affect cohesion.

Team factors are if a team can stay together for a long period of time, experiences a range of success and failures together and be involved in the decision making process. The group is more likely to be productive and cohesive.

Serena Williams 

Serena Williams has various personalities she calls one Summer who is really effective and organized and she's amazing. Another called Megan was a bad girl who likes to have fun.  There was also Psycho Serena gets really crazy on the tennis court and fights really hard, but sometimes takes it a little too far. Laquanda keeps things real, you definitely don't want to cross her. Because you cross her, then she snaps.

What is it that makes Serena the ultimate competitor? she has fought back from injuries and ignored press saying she is finished.  However, she is the ultimate competitor who fights just as hard and appreciates the win even more than when there’s a million dollars on the line.

There’s a correlation between motivation and success. What can we infer regarding the motivational forces that make Miss Williams the ultimate champion?

Money is the most effective motivational force, however Serena doesn't need money, so she’s able to compete for honour instead of cash.  People work harder when they work for something bigger than themselves.  Serena has won grand slams in tennis and is a successful business women but she has never won an individual Olympic medal is she has something to prove.  Having won all of this she has definitely left her mark on history.  She still drives herself in the pursuit of perfection and is the ultimate competitor.

Mia Hamm

• Women's Soccer Icon

• Olympic Gold Medalist

• Women's Sports Spokeswoman

Mia exposes a lot of good character traits because she is an individual that has a good attitude. She gives back to her community with her charities. She showed perseverance because she did not abandon her teams when she played football. In 1999 Mia stopped playing football but because she was a very successful athlete and is a big reason for football being where it is today. She was hard working and strong willed and showed so much passion for the game and respected the game so much.

She is determined because at the age of 15 she became the youngest player to be named in the U.S. National team and this shows determination by pushing yourself to be that good you get into the national team of the United States. She is also determined because she is working hard to fight against bone marrow disease and in 1999 Mia created the Mia Hamm Foundation as a non-profit national organisation dedicated to raising funds and the raising awareness of bone marrow disease. This shows that by pushing yourself at what you know and believe you are good at yo

u will be able to achieve your goals.