Accept me, reject me, but this is me.
Personality is a common enough word. We speak of nice or strong personalities when describing people – especially our sporting heroes. And Personality Plus is something we’d all like to have. But none of these everyday uses of the word captures the psychological concept of personality.
To the psychologist, personality is the sum total of the ways in which you react to and interact with others and to your environment. In this sense, it’s the integration of attitudes, values, habits, physical characteristics, interests, abilities and so on. Clearly the psychologist cannot say LeBron has “no personality” while Serena has “lots of personality.” The scientific study of personality is of the whole person, and we are all that.
Personality is the platform with which we project ourselves into the world. It's our means to reading each other. It's our public persona.
There are different personality types. Although they might behave differently under particular circumstances, we all know someone who is outgoing or shy, upbeat and cheerful or pessimistic and gloomy, dependable and conscientious or unreliable and unpredictable.
If you’re an extravert, it may make you more engaging in the dressing room, whereas introverts prefer to be solo oriented. But this does not mean that your specific behaviors are necessarily consistent from one situation to the next. Rather, it reflects the strong likelihood that general tendencies are more predictable. In fact, most of us fall somewhere in the middle of these polarities, with a healthy mix of traits between the two.
Historically, personality traits were seen to be consistent, stable and enduring. But behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with the environment and with the advent of neuroplasticity we have more control over our minds and personalities than was ever thought possible.
Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability throughout a lifetime, to reorganize itself by forming neural connections in response to new situations or to changes in their environment Perhaps you can become the personality that you’d like to be.
Back to the introvert or extravert dichotomy – if you fall more predominantly into one characterization or another, it can affect the type of sport you like to play.
Introverts generally like (and do better at) sports that involve:
• Complex skills
• Concentration
• Individual sports (like golf, cycling, skiing and archery.)
• Precision
• Self-starting
• Lower arousal levels
Extraverts prefer (and do better) at sports, which involve:
• Fast pace
• High arousal levels
• Large, simple motor skills
• Team oriented
• Thrilling
• Lower concentration levels (like football, field athletics and boxing.)
The fact that everyone is different is highly significant for coaches who ideally, should try and understand more about their athlete’s personality. This knowledge can help maximize the transmission of their messages and subsequent impact on performance.
Also linked to personality in sports performance, is the matter of coping behaviors and the strategies that athletes use to deal with stress and anxiety, whether in crunch situations or under sustained pressure.
All said and done, the old Greek aphorism Know Thyself is as relevant today as it was in Plato’s day. Knowing your own personality well, will enable you to acknowledge your own limitations. It will also help you evaluate others more accurately. And when you are aiming to win, self-knowledge is an all-important factor.
- Dr. Lenny Kristal