Summary A of:
The Psychosocial Characteristics of Olympic Track and Field Athletes
Fortunately, it was quite a simple task to find a research topic related to the material that we
have covered so far in sport psychology. After some quick searching, we ran across a rather
interesting article written in the International Journal of that could obviously be useful.
Conveniently, it was in the most recent issue of this particular journal available in the Evansdale
Library.
Entitled, Psychosocial Characteristics of Olympic Track and Field Athletes, this article happened
to be one that we could easily relate too. Because both of us are, we share a definite
commonality with the subjects of the study. This is true, even though neither of us will actually
make it to the Olympics to perform at the subjects' standards. At least, though, it is possible to
relate highly to these interesting people.
Basically, the purpose of this particular study was to identify the specific personality
characteristics of 15 Olympic caliber track and field athletes. Certainly, several people,
especially sport psychologists, would like to know if there are specific attitudes and personalities
that belong to the topnotch athletes of the world. Pretty simple request, right? Or at least it
sounds that way.
To perform this experiment, each of the athletes was asked six standardized questions. For
instance, one of the questions focused directly on the subject of How you do prepare for a
competition. The athletes responses to these questions were recorded word for word and
analyzed for content.
Interestingly enough, typical themes could be found throughout their responses. For example,
some of the athletes would mention that a was some how related to everything that they have
done. The people performing this study would relate this to the category of spiritual/ religious
factors. Also, a couple of the runners claimed that their lives were completely based on the
theme of mental skills and attitudes such as hard work and perseverance. It was very easy to
notice that these themes appeared time after time, for each question answered by the same
person. The researchers concluded that these emerging themes play an important role in the
psychological development of each athlete.
While it isnt a direct correlation, the work these researchers have done could be somewhat
related to developments in psychological skills training. Ideally, sports psychologists should
know exactly what effects the attitudes of an athlete. If some areas of psychological
development are more improved in an Olympic athlete, we could discover why, and possibly
use exercises to better another persons mental state if they are lacking in a similar area. By
investigating the way each of these athletes responds to the standardized questions, we may be
able to find methods to strengthen the mental attitudes of the average athlete.