Psychology of Sport Essay

The Relationship Factors of Personality and Team Athletics Cohesion

Trevor Egles

PSYC*3480

March 01, 2020

Traditionally, team cohesion is described as a measure of the strength of interpersonal connection as it relates to group performance in sports, and athletes’ sense of belonging and morale due to group membership. The main goal of this paper is to define its suitable correspondence to personality. Personality subsists as the motivation for the individuals to reach accomplishments together, and is widely seen in scientific disciplines as either the adhesive factor or disuniting wedge. The members have to forgo alluring alternatives to group success by using loyalty. Although the responsibility to develop unity belongs to the teammates, there is generally a large emphasis allotted to coaches to generate this for their team and discourage norms of social loafing. There are four main recognized categories of team cohesion, which are multidimensional, dynamic, instrumental, and affective, and the objectives of the group can be classified as either task or social. Task objectives focus on ability for group duties at hand, while social objectives centre on unity and willingness to cooperate (What is Cohesion?). The task and social objectives are the focus of the cognitions held by members of the group and clearly the differences between these two concepts are important to distinguish how athletes should manage on their teams. The concepts of team cohesion are also widely recognized in workplace settings, where some of the most significant group psychological and research studies are conducted. Group harmony is best achieved when the members can come to one another’s aid without being asked, show similarity for external characteristics such as racial background, and show similarity for such internal characteristics such as personal values and beliefs.

The fundamental reality that personality is important for predicting behavior has been recognized in psychological science. Moreover, researchers have recently noted that personality traits contribute to an overall distinctive prototype of conduct in sports. Specifically, the Five-Factor Model is the most popular structural model in the social sciences which can accurately give estimation for how well athletic performance will go (Mirzaei, Nikbakhsh, & Sharifarfar, 2013). The Five Factor Model dimensions are strongly connected with etiquete ranging from coping strategies, job performance, and motivation (Allen, Greenless, & Jones, 2013). Attributes such as neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion are correlated with sport performance, which is not definitively proven for agreeableness and tolerance. Many theories also link authoritarianism as a successful trait for maintaining group solidarity, meaning that better outcomes occur when respect to group leaders and authorities is followed. The degree to which group solidarity is obtained is therefore proportional to how closely authoritarianism is followed from how it is perceived to combat against threats to group success. Group functionality is herein placed above individual autonomy and it is based on the attitudes of the individuals (Duckitt, 2015). Although focusing cognitive processes for team success such as the exemplar of favouring authoritarianism over individual autonomy is pertinent to cohesion, it is not strictly defined as a facet of personality building togetherness. Strategy building concepts such as secrecy within a team and verbal communication tactics are self-evidently related to personality as tendencies for vocal presence and peer reinforcement subsist on a trajectory incorporating personality (Ratten, 2019). The overall question of whether there is a largely distinctive athletic personality remains, and there are convincing findings to suggest that personality disposition is connected to level of physical activity. Further, athletes are often more extraverted and ally stable (Alleemn, Greenlees, & Jones, 2013).

Continuing then to how the Big Five personality factors relate to cohesion: it is documented in a study by SAGE Publications that neuroticism is negatively correlated to task and social cohesion, but agreeableness and extraversion had positive correlation (Aeron, Sapnaa, & Pathak, 2012). The agreeableness trait is associated with more pragmatic views of team collaboration, and better cooperation so therefore it was identified constructively with social and task cohesion. Extraversion had relation to social cohesion as it begets positive attitude and beneficial relationships, but does not seem to aid in the task cohesion category (Aeron, Sapnaa, & Pathak, 2012). A significant finding from multiple sources is the indication that emotional stability associates well with team athletes above individuals, and that individual athletes have more association with conscientiousness. Again regarding the Big Five personality traits, groundbreaking research by VTechWorks has demonstrated that there is an optimal pattern, as in a combination, of these traits within a team for tasks (especially creative tasks). That is to say, the features are ineffective alone but results are available given the correct proportions of all the five attributes (Buchanen, 1998). These are conclusions drawn from the basis that the teamwork is in a work settings, it is known to apply widely to other performance-based activities including sports, where personality traits would still be as important as other group properties for predicting group behavior (Sopa & Marcel, 2014). Most academics distinguish two traits as personality relates to team composition, which are “elevation” and “variability” of specific attributes on a team. These mean how popular the trait is on a team and variance score of the certain trait, respectively and they correlate on the Big Five personality factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness (Peters, Tuijl, Rutte, & Reymen, 2006). A variation in agreeableness, even to the mere extent of one disagreeable team member, would result in disruption of cooperation. Likewise for conscientiousness, similar levels are desirable on a team and dissimilarity would lead to disruptive conflict (Peters, Tuijl, Rutte, & Reymen, 2006). The European Journal of Personality concurs that the variability and elevation of extraversion do not play a role in team performance, and that the influence of personality depends on the nature of the task regardless.

Males and females tend to diverge upon personality characteristics that represent sports actions and manners. Women seem to show more competition anxiety and underestimate their abilities, and the underlying reasons based on the typical nature of their personas are intriguing to consider. Female players also show more adjustment, which means the process by which one has balance between needs and the situations through which the needs must be reached (Kumar, 2013). Previously conducted studies have deduced that female teams exhibit stronger relationships of cohesion with performance; some assert this is because females are more socially oriented regarding teams, but there is not truly comprehensive total agreement. Females have different conceptions for the maintenance of relationships and ways of attending to group tasks. Noticeable gender differences are also recorded to result from different self-construals, and specifically women’s behavior is defined by interdependent self-schemas whereas men’s would be independent (Shannon, 2005).

Clearly researchers are wondering how much personality actually affects success and failure in team competition. For instance, one’s personality temperament could lead them to experience unnecessary pressure to perform and decreased social and personal enjoyment. Its predictive power is widely known and does correspond strongly to life outcomes. According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, personality is derived from the environment and social experiences and influences. Personality therefore evolves based on learning experiences, so it makes sense to ascertain that positive action and characteristics would result on a team based on leadership examples from role models (Sports Psychology, 2016). Leadership for the purposes of modeling behavior to shape teammates’ personalities is a self-evident factor of team performance in that the team’s quality is proportional to the quality of its leaders. So the personalities on a team would be pragmatically shaped by the leaders’ capacities to provide selfless encouragement and manage relationships, including delegating authority with effectiveness (Ratten, 2019). The most preeminent leaders, especially team coaches, should ensure the athletes retain similarity in values so they will gravitate well towards one another regarding the work. The figureheads need to apprehend what the players value and how this is incorporated with the principal mission (Ross, 2012). It is important to consider how personality and production level vary from amateur to professional teams, and since findings indicate that professional athletes show more extraversion and emotional stability, it would seem they are advantaged to affect outcomes more (Allen, Greenlees, & Jones, 2013). Subsequently it can be confirmed that personality scores are effective to identify athletes from non-athletes, and even subsections of athletes.

Principally, cohesion is linked to cognitions such as self-efficacy and role perceptions. The affective states of the athletes including perceptions of satisfaction and trust in teammates relate to cohesion, as does how well the mindsets of the athletes are able to recognize the consequence and importance of the competition. There are also broader sociocultural implications that impact cohesion which pertain to inclusion of underrepresented classes such as the mentally and physically disabled and foreign adolescents. While it is simplistic to be certain that there are specific personalities and attributes that are optimal for team sports, it remains as yet not fully clear what the best combinations of traits are at all times. Perhaps the classical personality in athletics assessment measures should be revisited to attempt finding a resolve for how to accurately predict how those of specific personalities will behave in competitive sports situations.

References

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