What you'll learn

• What psychologists mean by personality and why it matters in sport.
• How personality can be measured using questionnaires, interviews and observation.
• How Kroll and Crenshaw (1970) investigated personality profiles in athletic groups.
• How coaches might use personality knowledge ethically to improve performance.

Starting point: what is personality?

In sport psychology, personality is about the relatively stable patterns in how a person thinks, feels and behaves. It helps explain why two athletes can face the same competition but react very differently: one may see it as an exciting challenge, while another sees it as a threat.

For this OCR Sport and Exercise Psychology topic, personality is treated as a cognitive topic because personality is linked to how athletes interpret situations, make decisions, manage pressure and think about themselves.

For example, an athlete who is high in confidence may appraise a final as “my chance to show what I can do”, whereas an athlete who is more anxious may appraise the same final as “something I might fail”.

Trait, situation and interaction

Trait approach

A trait is a relatively stable characteristic, such as extraversion, emotional stability or conscientiousness.

In sport, psychologists might ask whether certain traits are linked to certain sports. For example, team athletes may often need communication and assertiveness, while endurance athletes may benefit from persistence and emotional control.

However, the trait approach can be too simple if it assumes people behave the same way everywhere.

Situational approach

The situational approach argues that behaviour is shaped mainly by the environment. A calm athlete may become aggressive if the match is highly competitive, the crowd is hostile and the referee makes a controversial decision.

This matters because sport creates powerful situations: pressure, evaluation, competition, fatigue, team expectations and the possibility of winning or losing.

Interactionist approach

The interactionist approach combines both: behaviour is influenced by the person and the situation.

Measuring personality in sport

Psychologists need a way to turn personality into measurable data. This is usually done using psychometric tests, which are standardised tools designed to measure psychological characteristics.

Common methods include:

• Questionnaires: athletes answer fixed questions or rating scales.
• Interviews: athletes discuss their thoughts, feelings and behaviour with a researcher or psychologist.
• Coach observation: coaches record patterns such as communication, persistence, risk-taking or response to failure.
• Personality inventories: established tests such as Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, often shortened to 16PF.

Strengths of questionnaires

Questionnaires are useful because they can be standardised. This means every athlete receives the same instructions and questions, improving reliability.

They also create quantitative data, which can be analysed statistically and compared across athletes or groups.

Weaknesses of questionnaires

Questionnaires rely on self-report, so athletes may give socially desirable answers. For example, an athlete may want to look confident, tough or coachable.

A personality questionnaire may lack validity if an athlete misunderstands questions, exaggerates strengths or hides weaknesses.

Personality and sports performance

Personality may relate to sport in several ways.

Sport choice

People may be drawn to sports that suit their personalities. Someone who enjoys stimulation and social contact may prefer team sports. Someone who values independence may prefer individual sports.

But be careful: this is not a rule. Introverted athletes can excel in team sports, and extraverted athletes can excel in individual sports.

Performance under pressure

Personality may influence how an athlete appraises pressure. A highly confident athlete may interpret arousal as readiness. A less confident athlete may interpret the same arousal as panic.

This links to cognitive sport psychology because the key process is interpretation: what does the athlete think the situation means?

Training and persistence

Traits such as conscientiousness may be linked to training adherence, preparation and goal-setting. Athletes who are organised and persistent may be more likely to follow training programmes consistently.

Teamwork and communication

In team sports, personality may affect leadership, communication, conflict and cooperation. However, the most successful team is not simply the one with the “best” individual personalities. Team roles and relationships also matter.

Key research: Kroll and Crenshaw (1970)

Aim

Kroll and Crenshaw (1970) investigated whether different athletic groups had different personality profiles. Their study is important because it did not just look at one trait. It used a multivariate approach.

Method

Kroll and Crenshaw studied male athletes from four sporting groups, commonly reported as football, wrestling, gymnastics and karate. They used a personality questionnaire approach, including Cattell’s 16PF, to build personality profiles for each group.

The study compared groups statistically to see whether the pattern of personality scores differed between sports.

This was not an experiment in which personality was manipulated. It was more like a comparison between naturally occurring groups.

Results

The main finding was that the athletic groups showed different personality profiles. This suggests that athletes from different sports may differ in patterns of traits.

However, the study did not support a simple idea that there is one universal “athletic personality”. Instead, personality may vary depending on the type of sport, role demands and sporting culture.

Conclusions

Kroll and Crenshaw concluded that personality profiling may help us understand differences between athletes in different sports. Their findings are useful because they support the idea that sport psychology should consider the demands of the specific sport rather than treating all athletes as the same.

Evaluating Kroll and Crenshaw (1970)

Methodological strengths

A strength is the use of a standardised personality measure. This improves reliability because participants answer the same items under similar conditions.

Another strength is the multivariate approach. Looking at a profile of traits gives a richer picture than studying only one trait such as extraversion.

Methodological weaknesses

A weakness is that the study was based on a specific sample of male athletes. This limits generalisability, because the findings may not apply to female athletes, younger athletes, recreational athletes or elite performers in other cultures.

The design also limits conclusions about cause and effect. If wrestlers score differently from gymnasts, we do not know whether personality led them to choose those sports, or whether training in those sports influenced their personality and self-presentation.

Validity issues

The study relied on personality questionnaires, which may be affected by social desirability. Athletes may answer in ways that fit the image of their sport.

For example, a football player may feel pressure to appear tough or dominant, while a gymnast may feel pressure to appear disciplined and controlled.

Ethics

The study is relatively low risk compared with many classic psychological studies, but ethical issues still matter under the BPS Code. Researchers should protect confidentiality, gain informed consent and avoid harmful labelling.

Debates

This topic links clearly to the individual versus situational debate. Personality explanations focus on individual differences, while sport contexts remind us that pressure, team culture and coaching style also shape behaviour.

It also links to usefulness. Personality research can help coaches tailor support, but it must be applied carefully because evidence is often correlational.

Application: using personality to improve performance

A sensible strategy is to use personality profiling to personalise psychological skills training.

Strategy: personalised psychological skills training

A coach or sport psychologist could first assess an athlete’s personality using a questionnaire, interview and coach observation. They could then design support around the athlete’s likely cognitive responses.

For example:

• An athlete high in anxiety may benefit from relaxation, breathing control and positive self-talk.
• An athlete low in confidence may benefit from mastery goals and imagery of successful performance.
• An athlete who is highly extraverted may benefit from group-based motivation and leadership roles.
• An athlete who prefers independence may respond better to private feedback and individual goal-setting.

AO1, AO2 and AO3 essay thinking

For AO1, describe personality, measurement methods, the trait/situation/interactionist approaches, and Kroll and Crenshaw’s aim, method, findings and conclusions.

For AO2, apply personality ideas to a sporting scenario. If the question gives you an athlete, team or coach, use the details in the scenario: sport type, pressure level, behaviour, confidence, anxiety or communication.

For AO3, evaluate measurement issues, validity, reliability, sampling bias, ethics and whether the evidence proves causation.