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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1428107
This article is part of the Research Topic Physical Culture for Mental Health View all 23 articles

On research into the relationship between personality traits and the sporting level of competitive, professional and elite athletes

Provisionally accepted
Pawel A. Piepiora Pawel A. Piepiora 1*Petra Čaplová Petra Čaplová 2Paweł Zimoń Paweł Zimoń 3Róża Gumienna Róża Gumienna 1
  • 1 Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
  • 2 Technical University of Liberec, Liberec, Liberec, Czechia
  • 3 Karkonosze University of Applied Sciences, Jelenia Góra, Poland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Data on the relationship between personality traits and athletes' level of sportsmanship are not sufficiently documented. Therefore, it is reasonable to look for differences in personality traits between athletes from different levels: amateur, competitive and professional, as these groups of athletes function differently on a daily basis. Therefore, the aim of this article was to gain knowledge about the relationship between personality traits and the sporting level of athletes. The experiment examined male and female athletes (N=119) aged 19-34, including 100 Polish professional athletes: 30 basketball players, 40 football players, 30 kyokushin style karate competitors; and 19 professional athletes (among them were the elite: 3 Olympic medallists): 4-person Polish Biathlon Team, 7-person Polish Luge Team, 8-person Swiss Mountain Bike (MTB) Team. The NEO-FFI Personality Questionnaire was used. Analyses were performed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0 package at a statistical significance of α = 0.05. Significant differences were found in comparisons between groups of athletes: football players and karate competitors (in severity of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness), football players and basketball players (in severity of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness), football players and lugers (in severity of agreeableness), football players and mountain bikers (in severity of neuroticism). One significant difference was noted in the comparisons between athletes from different levels: competitive athletes had higher neuroticism severity than elite athletes. A weak and negative correlation between neuroticism and sporting levels was verified. But no correlation was shown between personality traits and the likelihood of becoming a professional. It was concluded that the observed differences between the studied groups of athletes could be derived from the specifics of the different sports. The elite are characterised by a lower intensity of neuroticism in relation to the competitive athletes, which can be seen in the relationship: the lower the neuroticism, the higher the sporting level.

    Keywords: Big Five, NEO-FFI, neuroticism, sports psychology, sport theory

    Received: 05 May 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Piepiora, Čaplová, Zimoń and Gumienna. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Pawel A. Piepiora, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wrocław, Poland

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