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Previous research on athletic identity (Brewer Van Raalte, & Linder; 1993; AI) suggests that strong AI may force an athlete to neglect other aspects of life in order to fulfill the athlete role. This project assessed the effect of AI on life priorities and athletic experiences. Two hundred thirty-six runners completed a questionnaire assessing demographic information. AI, life priorities, commitment to sport, sport performance, and psychological, physical, and social consequences of marathon training. Bivariate and extreme groups analyses investigated the relationship between scores on the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (Brewer. Van Raalte, & Linder 1993) and each of the variables mentioned above. There was no evidence that runners with high AI were neglecting other aspects of life in order to fulfill the role of an athlete. Relative to low AI, high AI was associated with better athletic performance, more commitment to running, expanded social network, and relatively more frequent experience of both positive and negative effects of marathon training. The relevance of age of athlete in the assessment of AI is discussed.
The prevailing view of the self concept is that it is a multidimensional structure that includes all of a person's thoughts and feelings about the self within various aspects of life (Carver, Reynolds, & Scheier,1994; Higgins,1987; Linville, 1985; 1987; Showers, 1992). The multidimensional nature of the self-concept allows people to activate different dimensions of the self at different times, and behavior and information processing will tend to vary depending upon the dimension of the self that is active in a given situation (Markus & Nurius, 1987). For instance, when the athlete role is activated during intense training, loud laughter may be interpreted as disruptive. On the other hand, when the social dimension is activated during a night out with friends, the same person would interpret this laughter as pleasing.
Given that people can move among many dimensions of the self, researchers have become interested in the relative salience of some common dimensions of the self-concept (Markus, 1977; Markus & Zajonc, 1985). According to Stryker ( 1978), identity salience can be conceptualized as the probability that a given identity will be activated in a given situation. For example, the extent to which athletics is an important part of a person's self-concept will determine...