Abstract

Understanding the person behind the athlete, and realizing that athletes are different people, lies at the heart of effective applied sport psychology (Fifer, Henschen, Gould, & Ravizza, 2008). In contrast to this apparent truism on the importance of personality within sport and performance contexts, personality research has had something of a troubled history in the sport literature. Indeed, despite personality being erstwhile the subject of considerable research interest (Eysenck, Nias, & Cox, 1982), many sport psychology researchers have more recently turned their attention to sport-related cognitions and behaviours while neglecting the personality dimensions that might underlie those behaviours. This has led to personality being seen as something of a backwater in sport psychology research.