How an Individual’s Personality Can Impact Sports Performance

In this essay I will be discussing how a variety of aspects can impact sports performance. One of those aspects is an individual’s personality. Personality is the characteristics that make a person unique. Personalities are consistent ways of behaving that are unchangeable over a variety of situations. I will be looking at different types of personalities such as Personality traits, Social learning theory, Interactional Theory and the tests that impact sports performance.

To begin my review between personality and sports performance I am going to review the different dimensions created by Eysenck. Eyseneck tried to define personality by sectioning it into different dimensions. One dimension is between introvert and extrovert personalities, whilst the second is between stable and neurotic. If you have the personality of an introvert, you are someone who is not actively seeing high levels of arousal during sport. They naturally have high levels of arousal and do not need additional excitement. This would relate to the type of sport that they would participate in, as performance would be highest when arousal levels are optimal. An example of this is marathons/ archery because it provides an environment that does not involve high levels of arousal and allows the athlete to keep reduced levels of arousal resulting in optimal performance. This means that their performance levels would be high as they are neither under-aroused nor over-aroused. The other end of this dimension is an extrovert’s personality type. This is when someone is naturally under aroused, so they become bored more easily. This means they cannot do tasks which require high levels of concentration and low levels of arousal. Extroverts perform in sports such as football and rugby which involve other participants and high levels of crowds. Extroverts are drawn to these types of sports because the sports performer is naturally under aroused and become bored easily; football and rugby are both sports which need high levels of arousal and excitement. By surrounding themselves in high levels of arousal the athletes are more likely to reach their optimum level of arousal and would therefore perform better.

Personality types are sectioned into different dimensions. The second dimension is between stable and neurotic personalities. Having a stable personality is when someone is easy going and easy tempered. This can impact you in sport because it will allow a sporting performer to stay calm during high levels of arousal and remain calm tempered. An example of this could be when an opposing team is behaving in an aggressive manor towards you, a stable personality type would be able to remain calm and keep arousal levels low. This will mean that their performance levels during sport will remain high as they do not let high levels of arousal impact performance. Having a personality of being neurotic is when someone is restless and excitable, with a tendency to become anxious and highly arousal. This can impact you negatively in a sports performance as it can cause you to be over aroused and decrease performance levels. This type of personality type would respond in an aggressive manor back to the opposition. This could result in over arousal and decrease levels of performance. To overview this theory, you need to understand that the different personality types predict behaviour and help understand how this can impact the way sportsman behave during participation.