Sport psychology is practiced by psychologists specializing in the domain of sport psychology and by sport scientists specializing in psychological aspects of sport and the athlete.

CRAIG BATLETT

SPORTS SCIENCE PERSONALITY ASSIGNMENT

INTRODUCTION

Sport psychology is practiced by psychologists specializing in the domain of sport psychology and by sport scientists specializing in psychological aspects of sport and the athlete. It concerns itself with the maximization of sporting performance by developing the mental strength and addressing the general psychological well being of athletes. Sports psychologists from both backgrounds, have most often worked with athletes on mental or psychological skills training, which deals with topics such as motivation, confidence, arousal control, concentration, mental rehearsal, and life skills; usually addressed through an educational approach. Additionally, psychologists have become involved in a range of clinical issues with athletes and interpersonal issues between members of a team or between coaches and athletes. However, intuition and clinical experience are also drawn upon, especially when there is no document theory of significant research findings to guide invention. From a psychological perspective, athletes are best considered first as the same as non-athletes. Athletes have the same amount of psychological problems as non-athletes, although they do tend to have certain problems (e.g. eating disorders) a little more than the general population, while a slightly lower rate of chronic mental health problems (e.g. schizophrenia).

PERSONALITY Definitions

Personality is the sum total of the typical ways of acting, thinking and feeling that makes each person unique.
Everyone has a uniquely different way viewing the world, other people and themselves.
There is not “one reality” but rather a sharing of partial common realities among people.

www.finborough.suffolk.sch.uk

It is important for Sports psychologists to have a background from which they can analyse their athletes, and so they will be constantly researching personality to see differences in other situations which they can apply to their athletes, all the extra knowledge they have on the subject is helpful to them, and also to keep updating on new scenarios which have taken place with other sports psychologists. Sports psychologists need to have up-to-date knowledge of personality, as each athlete is different and may require information that you don’t have to solve the problem. According to ‘

The task for my assignment is to use psychological testing to find out how sports performers personalities differ and how that affects their performance. Also to find out which sort of personality test is the most accurate in finding out information about a person personality via sport. For example I will have to find out why someone who takes part in rugby at a high level is totally different in personality to that of a long distance yet can still reach the same level of performance.

I have decided to use several methods of testing to find out the differences in personality, I find by using several I will get a good accurate overview of someone’s personality and be able to tell how their personality affects their sporting performance. Firstly I will have written-up a set of questions to ask all four performers in an interview style test. This will me their opinions on certain situations involving personality and sport, but it gives than one word answers and multiple choice, it really gives me their opinion on their on personality. I believe this is a good place to start my investigation, as I will already have an idea of their personality before I start my own investigation of their personality. I’m also using several personality questionnaires to get an analysis of different parts of their personality. I’m using cattell’s 16pf and a personal attributes questionnaire, which are very similar in that they both inquire about what kind of person you think you are. Both questionnaires are set-up with each item consisting of pair of characteristics, on which you plot exactly where you think you are on a scale. I’m also using Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) that will give me an idea of their level of anxiety. In addition to them I’m using several personality tests, which deal just general aspects of their personalities unrelated to sport. I am also going to analyse their behaviour in sporting situations to give me an idea of how I think their personality affects their sporting performance. I will use both types of sporting observations covert and overt so I can both sides of their performance one with a scout and one without. I have decided to analyse four subjects all male, a distance runner, a basketball player, a football player and a rugby player.

Before even starting thinking my assignment I needed a background in sport personality research to get an idea into how to complete my investigation and get the best results from my testing procedures.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Several theories have been proposed to explain and predict personality. They range from primitive biological explanations, through more complex biological theories, and continuing with the more predominant theoretical representations such as psychodynamic and organismic theories, trait theories, social learning theories, and interactionist theories. It is only necessary for me to concentrate on trait theories, social learning theories and interactionist theories, so I can discard early and biological theories, as they aren’t really relevant to my assignment.

TRAIT THEORIES

Trait theories have generated a lot of research into personality, and most sport personality research has been based on trait theories. A lot of the tests that I’m using to analyse personalities have been based on trait theories, especially cattell 16pf and the personal attributes questionnaire. What trait theories are basically saying that when a person is an extrovert in school activities, it is likely to spread to the rest of that person’s daily life and including sport. So under that assumption if you analysed a person in sport and they came across as being the person who raises his hand for a team-mate to pass to them instead of shouting and is generally quiet, you would find if watched them in daily activities such social gatherings they are not likely to be talking a lot and suggesting ideas. I have found out though through research into trait theories that in fact they a very poor indication of a person’s behaviour and that they will give a small percentage of someone’s overall personality. Someone who has been critical of trait theories is Mischel, “even the most psychometrically sound trait measures at best predict only a small proportion of actual behaviour”. This means that someone who plays centre in rugby and is good at rugby and shows a lot outgoing traits and seems to be an extrovert may in fact be a quiet person in school, as they may not have confidence to extrovert in a school environment. This means that I have had to use more than just trait theories to analyse my subject’s whole personality.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Many of the people that have criticized trait theories have approached personality research with a social learning approach instead as they have found that trait theories do not predict personality very well at all. Social learning theories are based on the fact that a centre in rugby is extrovert because the situation and position demands that he is an extrovert. So you adapt your personality to certain situations. Bandura (1977) states this “Psychological functioning is explained in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction of personal and environmental determinants”. One person I researched goes I even further with a social learning and discounts the role of personality altogether. He basically says that when a you analyse a centre in rugby and he comes across as an extrovert and assertive it’s because the situation requires him to be that way and because the majority of rugby players who are centre’s also have extrovert tendencies so that means that if you put any sort of person in that position they would show assertive behaviour, as the position demands this.

INTERACTIONIST THEORY

This is a preview of the whole essay

INTERACTIONIST THEORY

As I have shown above many people have realized that trait theories don’t really give an accurate view of personality and so people have tended to move towards social learning theories instead. But they also don’t believe that social learning theories holds the key to a person’s entire personality either and many personality researchers will use the interactionist theory instead as this combines the theory of both personality factors and situational factors as judges of behaviour. The problem with social learning theories is that a sports performer may become anxious in highly competitive match but may find important exams easy to deal with. The interactional approach is a very complicated way of dealing with personality and it considers many different factors to explain personality. For example why some football players have got a reputation of being hard footballers is placed down to numerous personality and environmental factors. Different personality characteristics may have a large number of factors, such as an insult from an opponent, may cause an aggressive response from one player but not from a different player on the team in the same situation, and it might not even result in the same response from the same player again in a slightly different situation. His original reaction good have been as result of outside factors, such as problems at home or a hangover.

“The interactionist approach implies a complex explanation of behaviour but offers a more realistic explanation than simpler predictions that are provided from extreme trait or situational approaches.” Sports Coach 2001

This gives the conclusion that a person’s personality is complex and is not an easy thing to analyse and cannot be summed up with simple answers and has to be tested in different ways situations to get better idea of it. This brings to me to my testing and why I have chosen so many different tests to analyse my subjects, I feel that I would not be able to evaluate my results from just the cattell 16pf or covert observation I need bring all my testing collectively together so I can get a wide range of aspects of their personality to try and build and overall picture of their personality. I have chosen a wide range of test, as I don’t believe that just using form of testing is enough to get an accurate analysis of someone’s personality. For example if I just analysed a sports performer using overt observation I might not have got their true character they may have ‘shown off’ to impress or the opposite might have been nervous about someone pacifically watching, this means I wouldn’t be able to tell whether what I analysed was actually their true personality. I also feel that just interviewing would not help to find accuracy into someone’s character as they might lie to make themselves look better or look differently, with an interview there are no set answers to choose from so the performer can easily make up answers. This is why I think questionnaires are good as they give the athlete set answers to choose and they can’t differ from this, so it gives me a relatively accurate answer. Picking questionnaires that analyse different parts of sportsman personality is very important as obviously I can get overview of their personality from different perspectives.

CATTELLl 16PF

Cattell established his list of traits from a variety of sources and thus avoids the criticism of Eysenck's self-reporting method.

According to Cattell, there are sixteen factors of personality, all bipolar:

(Source Hayes & Orrell ())

Cattell is often criticised for having produced an overly simplistic model. It is also objected that his system is too rigid, since certain traits may be very important for understanding some people and totally irrelevant to others. However, he himself drew attention to the variability introduced by such factors as the situation, the role currently being played and faking.

METHODOLOGY

Before starting my assignment I decided that I was going to my best to find out about every part of my subjects personality and to do this I have to use a reasonable amount of tests. In the end I chose to observe my subjects during sport overtly and covertly, I devised an interview in the form of some questions and have asked them to complete a number of personality questionnaires. I have used Cattell’s 16pf, SCAT (sports competition anxiety test); Personal attributes questionnaire, Locus of control questionnaire and a personality questionnaire I found from the Internet. I believe that from doing all these tests that I can get a better idea of their personality than I would have if I had just used one of the types of testing.

OVERT & COVERT TESTING

You spend a certain amount of time personally analysing a performer overt is when the performer knows you are watching them and covert is when you analyse them without them knowing. This gives you an idea of what their personality is like in a sporting situation and how they respond to being analysed. I personally think covert analysis is the best test you can use to find out someone’s true personality within sport unfortunately it is an invasion and may not be recommended when observing people that you don’t know. I feel that overt observation is only useful when used in conjunction with covert as when you tell someone that your watching they perform differently either to impress you or perform badly because you are watching them. It does give you a good insight after using covert observations as you already have their real personality and then you receive their personality when being watched which I think is important in finding their true personality.

INTERVIEW

Have a set of questions that you personally ask the athlete usually the questions written by you as you might what to find out something different than observations and questionnaires have found out about the performers personality. As I have already stated interviews are easily faked and performers can give answers that aren’t true to their personality but as I have I asked people that I no well I think I would have reasonably accurate answers It wouldn’t be as useful when asked to people that you didn’t know. Interviews allow the athlete to express his opinions to set questions where as questionnaires with set answers don’t really allow this.

CATTELL 16PF

As written in the Cattell section.

SCAT TEST

Gives you an insight into how they handle anxiety in sport according them. 15 anxiety based questions and a given result at the end so you compare to a given scale. The problem with this test is that is doesn’t the person answering a great choice of answers they can chose rarely, sometimes and often on some questions it may not give the person answering their true answer. This is problem with test or questionnaires with set answers and this is also why interview can be useful.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES QUESTIONAIRRE

Twenty-four questions with each question given a pair of descriptions and the athletes have to place themselves on the scale from A to D to near which description they think they are. Each pair describes contradictory characteristics, this means that you cannot be both at the same time, fro example very aggressive or not very aggressive. I like this test as it gives the person answering multiple choices as so not many performers are going to get similar results from the test.

LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALE

A set of forty questions designed to find out how much control you have over your own life. This isn’t a great test as it’s only a yes or no test meaning that you can only have a choice of yes or no to each question which limits your response I thought it was useful though as it gave me a different aspect of the athletes personality which I don’t believe I had received from the other tests. Another positive you get a computer-generated result, which can be compared, to a scale.

PESRONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE FROM

200 questions with specific personality questions. It is basically a good personality test as it is designed by personality scientists but I believe it is slightly too long as the athletes will probably get bored during it and may not answers the questions with full concentration and is easy to just tick a box without even looking at the box.

I wanted to get an idea of how sports performers differ as well, so I have picked four athletes from different sports and from individual sports and team sports to see the differences in personality. I tried to pick people that were the same age they are all 17 or 18 so it gives you an idea of what people of that age are like.

Firstly I observed Anthony Wilson a long distance runner so an individual sport.

The second person I observed was Paul Lock who is a basketball player which obviously a team sport.

The third person I observed is Daniel Swan.

The last person I observed was Simon Mabin.

I used all of my testing procedures on all four of them, overt and covert analysis, Interview, Cattell 16pf, personality test, locus of control test, Scat test and Personal attributes questionnaire. My observations were taking from two ten minutes analyses of the athletes ten minutes for my overt analysis and ten minutes for my covert analysis. I analysed all my athletes first in covert and then overt because they will not be expecting it at first so then I would get the best results from my covert analysis, then I told them I was analysing them and wrote down my results, you would expect some differences.

PREDICTIONS

I believe there is certain things from this investigation that you would expect happen; I feel it is important to predict what’s going to happen to see if you can see what an athlete is going to be like from what you know of them. E.g. their sport and college course. Firstly Anthony Wilson although he does an individual sport and a low key one you would expect him to show introvert characters but he doesn’t seem that way from just hanging around with him. He seems to be outgoing within friends and people he doesn’t know so well. I still would expect him to be a quiet performer though but as introvert as you might expect. Paul lock seems the sort of person that has extrovert characteristics when he is good at something, for example will only attempt something within his course when he has knowledge of something, so I expect if he is good at basketball player then you will notice his presence on the court.

Daniel Swan has always been a confident person always a leader, and is currently a captain. From what I know of him he always been self-confident both with and without sport so he is easily predictable I believe he will be strongly extrovert. Finally Simon Mabin, like Daniel he has always come across as self confident and although not being the tallest person has a physical presence and also like Daniel he is currently a captain is his sport. He has played representative rugby so like Daniel I believe he will show extrovert characteristics.

RESULTS

See Results folder.

CONCLUSSION + LIMITATIONS

Before comparing and contrasting each performer with each other I have to find out what each test or investigation says about the athlete. This will make it easier for me to find differences between the performers.

PERFORMER NO.1

ANTHONY WILSON

CATTELL’S 16PF

Notable results from Anthony’s test show him to be competitive, stubborn, confident, relaxed, practical and outgoing. This means that even though his sport individual he has attitude winning is important but show in a different maybe in ‘never give up’ attitude as the test says he is stubborn. It also shows us that he is outgoing and that maybe he helps others in training or competition.

SCAT TEST (SPORT COMPETITON ANXIETY TEST)

Anthony received a rating of 23 for his anxiety test, which states he has an average level of anxiety but is bordering on a high level of anxiety. He never ever states that a certain situation has never happened to him and so has experienced several forms anxiety but his level of anxiety is normal as so doesn’t affect his performance, interestingly he put that teams sports are more exciting and yet his sport is individual you may say he lacks the confidence to participate in team sports but his Cattell 16pf proves that he is confident so maybe he feels he is just better at individual sports.

PERSONNAL ATTRIBUTES QUESTIONNAIRE

Notable results Anthony’s PAQ test include him being very active, very competitive (already been noted in the Cattell 16pf), Never gives up easily (links to competitive and stubborn) and a strong awareness of others. You can already see links between the first three tests and getting an idea of Anthony’s personality. So far you can see that questionnaire are quiet in what they predict about someone’s personality.

LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALE

Anthony’s locus of control gives him a locus of control rating 14, which states that he sees himself as partially in control of his life. Perhaps he sees himself in control of his social life, but not at work or vice versa. I have already believed this would give inaccurate and it is really hard to tell as all my subjects were unable answer anything else apart from yes or no to the question ands it doesn’t give a lot of variety in answers, but never the less it gives and actually rating which is useful, I used this test only to give extra help and to see if it did link with the other tests.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

The final questionnaire was a personality test which got from , it’s a set of 200 questions that are set-up to give an in depth personality analysis with a graph being produced to show the results. The graph shows Anthony to have a very high level of happiness, but with an extremely low level of composure which the graph states that he should receive some attention everything analysis is of reasonably normal levels which shows that he is aggressive but not too much and his levels of certainty, activity, responsibility, correct estimation, appreciative, and communication are all at a normal level. Overall it seems that Anthony is basically a normal person with no deficiencies with his personality.

INTERVIEW

I devised 20 questions that put that gives a situation to the performer and to see what their response it allows them to give their own opinion. From Anthony’s answers I noticed that doesn’t like responsibility and although he competes in an individual sport and they isn’t great audiences in his sport he does like performing in front of others. His ambition is to be successful in life which I think is a very vague response but interesting, he holds no longing for sports professionally he would be happy as long as he is a success in what ever he does.

COVERT OBSERVATION

I spent 10 minutes analysing him in a race I noticed that before the race that he was communicating with opponents and coaches, I wouldn’t say he was ‘showing off’ though he seemed the sort of person that got along with a lot of his opponents. During his race he didn’t make a lot of noise for example wasn’t shouting to himself to motivate himself. The only significant thing I noticed he didn’t ever go in front until right at the end of the race that may mean that he wasn’t confident enough to do it or it probably tactical.

It is hard to use observation on cross-country as it is there isn’t a lot of action but from I did observe I couldn’t classify Anthony as either introvert or extrovert.

OVERT OBSERVATION

Once again I analysed Anthony for 10 minutes, I told Anthony that I was planning to analyse him before hand. Unfortunately there wasn’t much difference between the two observations. During my overt observations I noticed that he was communicating with opponents before hand, the only difference in this race that he involved in a two horse race battle with another performer.

ANALYSIS

I believe Anthony to be a very confident performer despite taking part in an individual and I believe you wouldn’t find competing in a team sport a difficult transformation as he has a lot of the characteristics required to perform with others. He is confident and outgoing and finds team sports to be more exciting than individual sports. I would say Anthony would thrive in a team sport; I wouldn’t classify him as extrovert or introvert as he has characteristics from both.

PERSONALITY: UNDECIDED

PERFORMER NO.2

PAUL LOCK

CATTELL’S 16PF

Notable results from Paul’s test show him to be emotionally stable, aggressive, spontaneous, confident and conventional. This shows me many of the aspects of personality you would from an active team sport player, even though basketball is a non-contact sport it does require you to have a certain level of aggression.

SCAT TEST (SPORT COMPETITON ANXIETY TEST)

Paul received a rating of 22 this means he has an average level of anxiety you expect that a team-sportsman would have an average as it became to high perform extremely badly as team sports are generally more high paced than individual sports and mistakes would be more costly as you effect the team as well as yourself.

PERSONNAL ATTRIBUTES QUESTIONNAIRE

Some of the key results taken from Paul’s PAQ test were being very active, very competitive, never gives up easily and is very aware of others. The last point I think is something you aspect to see from many team players as you have to be aware of your team-mates in order succeed. There aren’t any clear similarities in Paul’s PAQ test results and his Cattell’s 16pf results this may mean it certain situations he isn’t very aggressive for example and in others he isn’t.

LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALE

Paul’s locus of control gives him a locus of control rating of 8, which means that he has the tendency to have internal loss of control. He may see himself as responsible for the reinforcements you attain (and fail to attain) in life. So this is maybe why he is a team-sort player than an individual sportsman, as he doesn’t like the responsible of performing on his own, there is less responsibility in playing in a team as you have help from other people and the spotlight isn’t just placed on you. Paul would probably shy away from being captaining, as that can be the position that you need the most responsibility.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

Paul’s personality test graph shows alarming results. It shows that happiness, composure, correct estimation, appreciation and communications levels are all very low and need urgent attention. Although the results are drastic I don’t feel they are entirely accurate, I think it is a rough indication of what areas of his personality he needs to work, although the personality test has the most questions and offers a real insight into someone’s personality, I believe it can be misleading as it usually takes half an hour to complete the test and the athletes can get bored during the test and possibly not concentrate on the questions. I do believe that the test is correct certain extent but maybe not so drastically. After observing Paul and looking at his tests and just through basic knowledge of him I certainly wouldn’t say Paul isn’t active he also seems happy.

INTERVIEW

Paul’s answers show me that he sees himself as an extrovert for example he says that his performance differs when someone is watching him (I would agree with that answer) he takes part in team celebration has good amount of friends he enjoys performing in front of others considers himself a person that helps others.

COVERT OBSERVATION

Paul seemed a very active performer he was quite often performing tricks that didn’t work out during training this showed me that he is confident performer. Even though he didn’t seemed to be one of the better players he stilled had a will to win and was constantly running up and down the court which told me he is very active. I also noticed that even though he is short he doesn’t believe that to be a weakness as he was constantly winning rebounds despite his height and he never tried to wimp out of rebounds he was constantly attempting to go for them.

OVERT OBSERVATION

Paul seemed to a very influential performer constantly getting praise and received the ball a great deal from his teammates. He disputed many decisions, which leads me to believe that he is confident and has a good communication level. He had several conversations with team-mates and was constantly changing partners for exercises, which leads to think he is a well liked performer. I would say there a few notable differences in Paul’s personality within the two observations. When I analysed him covertly he seemed although confident not overly confident and wasn’t disputing decisions it seems to be that he was ‘playing to the cameras’ a bit, by this I mean that he tried to change usual performance to impress me, either that or his performance when I covert observed him was an indifferent performance. To get a truly accurate analysis of an athlete’s performance I would have to covertly and overtly analyse the performers several more times to get an average.

ANALYSIS

I would say like Anthony he shows characteristics of both an extrovert and introvert, he is a confident sports performer he is a very active performer taking part in sport up to 5 times a week. He is very vocal during sport and is very aggressive. He’s the sort of person t hat would be outgoing if he did an individual sport, even though he doesn’t the best ability in his basketball club he stills come across as a ‘show-off’.

PERSONSLITY: EXTROVERT

PERFORMER NO.3

DANIEL SWAN

CATTELL’S 16PF

Daniel’s Cattell 16pf results show us that he is out-going, emotionally stable, self-opinionated, tough minded, confident, self-sufficient and controlled. It seems that he has a lot of traits that an extrovert would typically have. Also Daniel is a captain for his football player, which I believe, tends to be an extrovert, as you have to be quite vocal. Also a higher percentage of football players are extrovert compared to the amounts that are introvert.

SCAT TEST (SPORT COMPETITON ANXIETY TEST)

Daniel received a scat score of 19, which means he has an average level of anxiety. Some of his answers are interesting he states that he rarely feels nervous wanting to start a game, which something that I wouldn’t expect from a captain but is not necessarily a bad thing. He states he a good sportsman when competing against others, which linked in with him being, controlled which his Cattell 16pf results discovered.

PERSONNAL ATTRIBUTES QUESTIONNAIRE

The key results from Daniel’s PAQ test are that he is very active, very competitive, he never gives up easily, he’s very self-confident, and stands up well to pressure. I think these results are very accurate in what I have noticed from his previous tests as so far I have noticed that he is a leader, he copes with anxiety well and that he seems to be an extrovert. Being a captain you would expect him to handle pressure and he thinks that does handle pressure so there are definite links between the first three tests.

LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALE

Daniel’s locus of control scale rating was 10. He sees himself as partially in control of his life. Perhaps he sees himself as in control in your social life, but not at work or vice versa. Daniel’s locus of control score is similar to Paul’s and there is a definite link I would say between team sport players and individual sportsman Daniel has a slightly higher rating maybe down to him being a captain and so has slightly higher level of control.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

Daniel’s personality graph says he is extremely happy, very active, very aggressive, has a high level of certainty, and he is reasonably stable. The only thing that seems to be a bit low was his level of correct estimation, which I don’t believe a major part of his personality this tests seems to the patterns emerging from the tests about his personality. That he is active, aggressive and is certain about himself. From his tests so far you would definitely place Daniel as an extrovert.

INTERVIEW

Daniel is part of a large family 1 brother and 3 sisters, to get noticed you will always have to some arrogance and out going qualities, he seems himself as natural leader and loves responsibility he takes part in team celebrations, he is the sort of person that helps out others. His sporting role model is Eric Cantona which is interesting as he was a controversial player but extremely well like and a hugely influential player. From what I noticed from his performance his is influential as can see similarities between the two.

COVERT OBSERVATION

I noticed leader qualities in Daniel’s performance he was constantly picking players confidence up when they had made a mistake. He went over to them and said encouragement to them things like ‘keep you chin up’. He was also influential through his performance I noticed he was the most talented player and gave other people confidence with his performance. He was very vocal as well constantly trying to encourage and ‘pump up’ his players similar to what a goalkeeper would do to his defence.

OVERT OBSERVATION

He was very vocal and constantly encouraging his team mates, didn’t’ try and play up to me at all, his performance was very similar to his performance that I covertly analysed, I think the match was too important to try and impress and change his performance he is the captain if he stated to try and show off it would have been a negative effect on the team.

ANALYSIS

Daniel is an extremely outgoing person he is aggressive performer he relishes pressure situations he likes the intensity of tough situations. He loves responsibility and thinks that he is a born leader. He shows all the characteristics of an extrovert and easy person to analyse, as his personality type is obvious.

PERSONALITY: EXTROVERT

PERFORMER NO.4

SIMON MABIN

CATTELL’S 16PF

Simon’s significant results from his Cattell 16pf says he is emotionally stable, tough-minded, confident, self-assured and is a concrete-thinker. This has a few of traits an extrovert rugby player would usually player would have but, but from this test alone you would not place Simon in the extrovert column as his results don’t enough significant answers to place him as any personality type.

SCAT TEST (SPORT COMPETITON ANXIETY TEST)

Simon’s scat score was 17 which means has an average level of anxiety. I would say this is normal for a rugby/team player his score is slightly nearer a low level anxiety than a normal rugby player I would have thought I would probably put this down to him being the captain of his team. You probably have a lower level of anxiety because as a captain you would expect them cool under pressure and so not feel as anxious.

PERSONNAL ATTRIBUTES QUESTIONNAIRE

Significant results from Simon’s PAQ test were he is very independent, he is more aggressive than not aggressive, very dominant, very active, very rough, very competitive, his feelings aren’t easily hurt, finds decisions making easy, he never gives up easily, very self confident, feels very superior, very little need for security and stands up well to pressure. I think Simon’s PAQ has been extremely significant in determining his personality as all his significant answers are the characteristics you would expect a rugby captain. A stereotypical view of a rugby player would be aggressive, rough, confident, very competitive and you expect their feelings would not easily be hurt. They are usually ‘thick skinned’ and self confident and Simon being a captain would be excellent making decisions that is also evident in his tests. Many scientists would pick rugby players as a good example of an extrovert as it is usually a demand for the sport. From what of have seen from Simon’s PAQ test I would say he is definitely an extrovert.

LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALE

Simon’s locus of control score was 16; this indicates that he sees himself as partially in control of his life. Perhaps he sees himself as in control of his social life, but not at work or vice versa. I would have to agree with this statement almost exactly as Simon is an apprentice farmer employed by his parents so that would explain the analysis him maybe not in control of his work. I would with the statement that he is in control with his social life especially in his sport as he is the captain of his rugby team he also plays for Devon so that would demand that he is in control as there is a lot of pressure.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

Simon’s personality test graph shows that he is either got a really good result or a really bad result. It shows that he is extremely aggressive, happy, composed, certain and active, on the other hand he has a low level of stability, responsibility, correct estimation, appreciation and communication. I would certainly agree with a lot of these results for example I think he is extremely aggressive, composed, active, certain, happy and would also agree that he has a low level of correct estimation. The other results I think can be explained I think the reason his responsibility is so low is that this a personality test and isn’t particularly related to sport and he probably has a low level of responsibility within the rest of his life.

INTERVIEW

Simon comes across a person that enjoys the responsibility that comes from being captain, he likes helping and coaching others he seems that he may have a temper when pushed. Being a captain he would be expected to take part in team celebrations.

COVERT OBSERVATION

A very aggressive performance he was constantly encouraging his team mates to perform well. He looks as if he enjoyed the responsibility that comes with being a captain. He was very aggressive in his performance with strong in tackles and burst sprinting. He was a very vocal player he spent a lot of time shouting which gives a very extrovert feel.

OVERT OBSERVATION

Simon was performing as someone was watching him, unfortunately being a friend of his he was quite often sticking his thumb up to me which gave me the opinion that he was concentrating on me rather than me, although he mainly did this when the play wasn’t intense either when the ball was out or a scrum was called. He always made sure he made tackles and was constantly going full pace at opponents. I did notice him stamping of players which I gather a trick of the trade in rugby as the referee isn’t to see all the off- ball contacts.

ANALYSIS

Like Daniel, Simon is an easy performer to analyse as his personality tests give clear results and there is a very clear pattern from all of them. From watching him you get a clear idea of what type of person he is. Simon is very confident, aggressive he is outgoing a born leader you enjoys roles that involve responsibility. He is a person that is approached by others and considered a likeable person; all the personality tests give a very similar analysis of Simon.

PERSONALITY: EXTROVERT