THEORIES OF PERSONALITY IN SPORT （人格理论在运动）.pdf

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY IN SPORT One of the big debates in Psychology is between Situational and Dispositional explanations of human behaviour. The SITUATIONAL HYPOTHESIS argues that people are all basically the same but they find themselves in different situations; if you want to explain why one person persevered and another person gave up, you need to look at their circumstances, background and relationships. The DISPOSITIONAL view is that people have certain unique qualities that remain constant across different situations and over time; personality could be one of these things. Psychologists studying personality have identified TRAITS, which are personal qualities that all humans share to some extent or other but which people have in different combinations. Research has agreed upon five traits (the Big 5) that everyone shares to some extent or other; this was first proposed by L.L. Thurstone in 1933:  Openness to Experience: how adventurous, artistic and tolerant are you?  Conscientiousness: how self-controlled and disciplined are you?  Extraversion: how outgoing and thrill-seeking are you?  Agreeableness: how compassionate and cooperative are you?  Neuroticism: how emotionally changeable are you? This is called the Five Factor Model (FFM) but you can remember it with the mnemonic O.C.E.A.N. Many psychologists like to take situations into account too, especially in sport where competitions can put athletes in incredible intense situations. This is the TRAIT-STATE approach, which recognises that people have certain constant traits, but most of the time we are influenced by temporary personality states. Because sporting situations involve extremes of tension, frustration, boredom and dependency, temporary states can often overwhelm permanent traits. This explains why a normally calm player can burst into tears, whoops for joy or throw his racket at the umpire! Personality Factors (Cattell, 194