CONNECTION BETWEEN PERSONALITY TYPE AND SPORTS

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to find out if there is any relationship between personality type and sport preference; why certain people choose a particular sport, why some people prefer a team sport, and others prefer an individual sport. In this research, athletes from four different sports (three individual and one team sport) and non-athletes took part in the study. The primary interest was correlations between measures of personality and different sport involvements within sport participation. One focus of interest was to ascertain what personality is the best for a particular sport, enabling the athletes to find more success with the least effort. Results from this study showed that athletes in team sports are more neurotic than athletes who participate in an individual sport and who tend to be more stable. Considering that there were more participants from an individual sport than team sports, results may be skewed a bit due to the lack of proportionality.