The young footballer’s reason for participating shows both similarities and differences when compared to the cyclist. If you look at their personality type they vary greatly. The young footballer is extremely outgoing and shows various extrovert personality traits which include confidence in large group situations which involves been loud and outgoing, the ability to socialise, good communication skills, he competes/trains with large groups and has the ability to assert himself and perform well in front of others or when been assessed. Contrasting to this is the cyclist who has various introvert personality traits. He is quite and reserved, trains ...
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The young footballer’s reason for participating shows both similarities and differences when compared to the cyclist. If you look at their personality type they vary greatly. The young footballer is extremely outgoing and shows various extrovert personality traits which include confidence in large group situations which involves been loud and outgoing, the ability to socialise, good communication skills, he competes/trains with large groups and has the ability to assert himself and perform well in front of others or when been assessed. Contrasting to this is the cyclist who has various introvert personality traits. He is quite and reserved, trains alone, competes in a less publicly viewed situations, doesn’t socialise well which is why he participates in individual events and rarely asserts himself to his coach. However there is one similarity in that both the footballer and the cyclist have lots of inner confidence, the footballer’s allows him to try out new skills/tasks and make new friends whilst the cyclist uses his to push himself as he doesn’t have many people pushing him to train harder and the fact that he has made it to professional level without help from the media and lots of friends/family shows that he has inner determination to go far in the sport. Both the footballer and cyclist have lots of intrinsic motivation. The footballer uses his to develop new skills and meet new people whereas the cyclist’s is mainly to keep training as he has an intense training regime and few competitions so must maintain the ability to push himself without his coaches help. Also, the cyclist has no pressure from his parents as he is old enough to make his own choices/decision .The footballer has quite a lot of extrinsic motivation too; he knows that if he performs well then he can gain external rewards such as player of the match trophies and cash prizes at tournaments. Plus there is the pressure to perform well from the coach, other team members, and also his parents. We can link the personality traits to the type of motivation associated with both performers. The cyclist is quiet and backs away from group situations, resulting in him motivating himself. He doesn’t work with many other people there is only his coach, therefore he doesn’t receive as much feedback whether it be negative or positive to work off and be pushed further. Plus, although he is a professional due to his introvert personality he competes in a less widely recognised sport and in individual races so there is a lack of media support and sponsorship, consequently there is little pressure to impress the public and win to gain tangible rewards such as cash/trophies. He is competing for himself and when he does well his introvert personality is enhanced as he develops more inner pride and confidence. The footballer has an extrovert personality type which means he is confident in group situations and works well when been evaluated. Therefore he will often look for situations where he can work with others so that he can be given feedback to push him further in his sport and he likes been evaluated where there is external rewards for his work which results in him striving from extrinsic motivation such as the player of the match trophies and cash prizes. Due to his age he has both introvert and extrovert personality traits and can still be intrinsically motivated. However if he continues to play football the extrovert in him is likely to take over as he will play in more recognised games and the prizes may get bigger. This will result in him lacking intrinsic motivation and he will constantly search for situations and areas in the game where he can gain public recognition and if he goes on to play professionally he will be motivated by fans and the tangible rewards he would receive such as cup/league trophies and his wages.
Overall, I believe that if you have an introvert personality type you have a lot more intrinsic motivation as there is little assistance and extrinsic pressure to do well and in order to go far in your particular sport I think you must develop slight extrovert traits in order to gain the recognition to compete at higher levels. I also think that extroverts concentrate far too much on the external rewards and forget that you should be gaining pride, confidence and a sense of fun from what you achieve rather then just participating to be widely recognised and to earn materialistic rewards. There should be an equal balance of introvert and extrovert traits.
