What is it about?
There is substantial amount of anecdotal evidence, as well as some empirical evidence, that there are various informal roles that naturally arise in sport teams. Examples of such informal roles include team comedians, informal leaders, mentors, spark plugs that may have beneficial influences, as well as team distracters and malingerers who may have more negative influences on the team. Given such informal roles are expected to arise naturally, this study investigated whether athletes' personality related to the informal roles they held on their teams.
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Why is it important?
Based on both anecdotal and empirical evidence, we know that these informal roles exist in performance groups such as sport teams, and that they could have meaningful influences on the group functioning. However, there is currently a lack of information on the factors that influence how these roles emerge. This study contributed to filling in this gap by examining personality as one of the potential antecedents of athletes' informal role occupancy.
Perspectives
The results of this study indicated that some of the athletes' personality characteristics may be an important factor in the types of informal roles they take on. For example, those who were more extraverted (i.e., outgoing, sociable) tended to be viewed by their teammates as the team comedian, and those who were more extraverted but also less conscientious (i.e., less dependable or reliable) tended to be viewed as the teams' distracters. Those who were more emotionally stable were more likely to be viewed as the team mentor. However, other roles (e.g., spark plug, enforcer) did not show associations with personality. This suggests the need to examine other factors related to the athletes (e.g., status/tenure in the team) as well as contextual elements (e.g., sport type, team size) in relation to informal roles.
Jeemin Kim
Wilfrid Laurier University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Athlete personality characteristics and informal role occupancy in interdependent sport teams, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, November 2018, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.07.011.
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