ABSTRACT

In Chapter 2, we examined the relationship between personality characteristics and sporting behaviour. However, there is another way of looking at the relationship between sport and individual differences. Trait, narrow-band and interactional approaches to personality all emphasise the aspects of personality that are fairly stable across the lifespan and are at least partly influenced by genetic make-up. This chapter is based on developmental approaches to psychology and focuses on the relationship between experience and personality. This calls for a slightly different definition of personality (Engler, 1999). Rather than thinking in terms of breaking down personality to its components, developmental theories see the personality of the individual as the sum of their formative experiences.