ABSTRACT
This chapter defines personality, explains how sport psychologists view and assess the construct, and summarizes research examining its relationship with sport performance. It describes the major ones are: the psychodynamic, biological, humanistic, trait and social-cognitive approaches. Common methods sport psychologists use to measure personality characteristics include standardised questionnaires, projective tests, behavioural observations and psychophysiological measurements. Given that each personality assessment method has limitations that influence the quality and breadth of information collected, many sport psychologists have argued that using more than one tool leads to a better understanding of athletes characteristics than when used in isolation. Cognitive and behavioural strategies include the deliberate thoughts and actions athletes employ to ensure their attention, cognitions, feelings and behaviours contribute to performance and goal achievement. Asking groups of individuals to identify the personality characteristics of elite athletes generally leads to similar clusters of answers including being tough-minded, focused, disciplined, imperious to pain and criticism, confident, coachable and dedicated.
