Sports psychology is a science in which the principles of psychology are applied to sports and also exercises. The psychology of sports can be seen through the lens of various psychological theories – humanistic, cognitive etc. However, the two new approaches of the psychology – positive psychology and evidence based methods be kept in mind while analyzing this field.
Many of the early researches were centred around the personality of the sports personnel. You must be aware of the various theories of personality – psychodynamic, humanistic, type, trait, social learning etc.It can also be noted that the tests which you know when you studied these theories like roschach test, TAT, questionnaires etc can be used to study the personality part of the sports person.
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| Photo by Matthieu Pétiard on Unsplash |
It was seen from researches that personality alone cannot predict sports performance. Morgan(1980) based on studies done commented that there is consistent relationship of personality with sports provided – multivariate approach is adopted and response distortion is removed.
It may be noted that athletes are independent, less anxious than non-atheletes (Joy 1977). The atheletes were alert, exhibited less anxiety and were extrovert than non-atheletes.
As the personality is a not-so strong factor in the prediction of performance, the Interactional model became popular.
(to be continued)
