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Personality characteristics of active competitive cyclists registered in the top two categories with the United States Cycling Federation were investigated The Personality Adjective Checklist (PACL), Coolidge Axis 11 Inventory (CA TI), and Profile of Mood States (POMS) were administered to 17 competitive cyclists, 17 recreational cyclists, and 17 nonathletes (12 males and 5 females in each group matched Jor age, education level, and income; N = 51). Results from a series of univariate ANOVAs indicated that the competitive cyclists scored significantly higher on the Confident scale of the PACL and significantly lower on the Cooperative scale of the PA CL. Profile analysis of the POMS revealed that both the competitive and recreational cyclists closely resembled the classic "iceberg" profile generally found in athletes. Directions for future research are discussed
The psychological characteristics of athletes have been of tremendous interest in the field of sports psychology for the past 20 years (Cratty, 1989). A number of studies have investigated the contribution of psychological variables to athletic performance and, particularly, athletic success. This area of study is important for understanding why some less physically talented athletes achieve greater success than their peers, while physiologically superior athletes sometimes do not succeed (Davis & Mogk, 1994). Indeed, motivation, diligence, anxiety, and various other psychological qualities have accounted for as much as 20% to 45% of the variance in successful athletic performance (Morgan, 1980).
Certain personality characteristics have been consistently found in athletes, such as introversion (Hagberg, Mullin, Bahrke, & Limburg,1979), lower levels of cooperation (Harder, 1992) and narcissistic personality characteristics (Carroll, 1989). Among elite cyclists in particular, high self-confidence has been associated with strong performance (McCann, Murphy, & Raedeke, 1992). Athletes have also been found to posses the "iceberg" personality profile, as measured by the Profile of Mood States (POMS; Morgan, O'Connor, Ellickson, & Bradley, 1988). Athletes with the "iceberg" profile on the POMS scored lower than the population average on tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion, and above the population average on vigor. This profile has been found among successful wrestlers (Silva, Shultz, Haslam, Martin, & Murray, 1985), crew team members (Morgan & Johnson, 1978) and distance runners (Morgan, O'Connor, Ellickson, & Bradley, 1988; Morgan & Pollock, 1977).
Exploring the psychological characteristics of athletes in sports psychology...