Psychological Analysis Of Personality Traits Of A Sport/Exercise Participant Using McAdams’ Integrative Framework

Part I: Dispositional Traits

According to McAdams personality psychologists should be first and fore mostly try to know persons. He eloquently puts two preeminent questions of the knowing of a person and what it takes to know a person in a scientific way to understand the psyche of a person. The answer to these questions were explained by him in his famous paper “A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality” co-authored by Jennifer L. Pals, from the School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University.  In this research I will attempt to analyse my personality traits on the basis of the Mc Adams three layer frameworks and create a report that provides a sample report for a sports psychologist or a coach to analyse his / her athletes.

Discussion

McAdams’ system empowers researchers to incorporate these distinctions under a solitary all-encompassing structure and, hence, gives a premise to more prominent rationality in the mental toughness writing. A contemporary individual, according to McAdams, makes an identity through a procedure which McAdams refers to as “selfing” creating one’s identity and individual story by weaving together a general self-definition. This feeling of developed personality is special to thinking grown-ups.  The following discussion will be followed by the summative analysis of the self following the stages as described by M Adams.

Part I: Dispositional Traits

As per this point of view, qualities are parts of identity that are moderately stable after some time, but differ over people and are generally reliable over circumstances, and impact conduct. Characteristics as compared to states, which are more transient dispositions. In a few speculations and frameworks, qualities are something a man either has or does not have, but rather in numerous others traits are measurements, for example, extraversion versus introversion or self preoccupation, with every individual rating somewhere along this range. The dispositional traits is analysed on the basis of the five factors that categorize the dispositional traits.

The factors that decide the traits are categorized as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness. The openness is portrayed as the degree to which a man is inventive or autonomous and delineates an individual inclination for an assortment of exercises over a strict schedule. Conscientious refers to the tendency of being organized and self disciplined, a scale of higher conscientious relates to more organized while a lower scale refers to a less organized and careless individual. Extraversion is the nature of being either extrovert or introvert (Guo, Klevan & McAdams, 2016). Neuroticism on the other hand reveals the quality to be either confused or nervous as compared to being confident and bold with respect to handling stress. Agreeableness points out to the nature of being friendly or compassionate as contrasted to detached and reserved.

Based on the five factor model I analysed myself with the help of an online psychometric tool (Take a personality test – Open Source Psychometrics Project, 2018) that gave an analysis of myself on the percentile grade. The following schematic reveals my score of the five factors.

Part II: Characteristics Adaptations

The above score reveals that I have 83% extroversion, 66% emotional stability which indicates that I have lower neuroticism which is the opposite of emotional stability as stated here. My agreeableness is 89% making me a friendly person whereas my conscientiousness is 92% which truly states my organized behaviour. My openness to experience is referred to as Intellect or imagination in the test, gives a median score of 59% making me a moderately opened person (Roberts et al., 2017).

As per the results obtained they indoctrinate the fact that I have traits similar to that of an athlete. Although it has developed over time the differences will be discussed in the other attributes as mentioned by Mc Adams in the following sections.

Part II: Characteristics Adaptations

The second level of identity is the rank of characteristic adjustments. While dispositional qualities portray the general conduct and traits of a man, trademark adjustments are those angles that address specific circumstances, for example, stresses, objectives, and concerns. Characteristics adjustments are the thought processes, interests, qualities, and dispositions, of a man (Coulter et al., 2016). They are firmly connected to the social-subjective part of human life and are to some degree identified with the dispositional characteristics of a man.  The following section will broadly discuss on my adaptations over the span of my life and how I coped to it and developed my plans for future.

I was always an active and energetic boy right from my school days. I was out going and actively participating in outdoor activities but it was during the initial years of my high school that I started gathering interest for Rugby. It was my high school coach who inspired me to find passion in this sport and cultivated the qualities that are required to excel in the sport.

It was with the same enthusiasm that I started playing the game but this was later directed to other sports and currently I have shifted my focus to Cycling and swimming which I feel lot more relaxing and energetic. I was gradually looking for scopes of newer adventure and growth which rugby failed to provide and was aptly replaced by cycling and swimming. Cycling allows a more freedom in terms of adventure and freedom so does swimming. I easily take my bike and go for a hiking or for a long route drive. Swimming allows me to completely express my spirit of adventure. This I feel is the transition that occurred and is the character adaptations as explained by mc Adams.

Part III: Narrative Identity

The narrative identity of an individual reflects the life story of the person and allows to understand the various high and low incidents that shaped the individuals character. This section will be briefly describing the various stages of my life and the way the influenced in forming character (McAdams, 2018). The narrative is developed on the basis of three different types of narratives which revolve around the various incidents of my life. The performance narrative, the discovery narrative, and a relational narrative, will narrate my life stories by relating events to each narrative (Adler et al., 2017). My performance narrative might start from the days of playing rugby in the school and being selected in the Secondary Schools rugby league. It was one of the most happening part of my life.

Part III: Narrative Identity

I was training vigorously for the selection and gave more than extra efforts which finally paid off by my selection in the team. It was a great moment of joy for me. I started to feel the results of hard work. I succeeded in the 1^st division league with seven caps in the season. After the season, I planned to continue playing the sport to the next level, but met with a back injury which took away a considerable time from my career. During my rehabilitation, I realized the importance to accept life as it comes and discover new aspects with enthusiasm. This phase of my life seems to be my discovery narrative. My rehab sessions included cycling and swimming to develop my core muscles. After my rehab I returned to rugby to find that there had been a change in the team and my replacement was made.

I was in the bench for the next few matches which started frustrating me. I desperately wanted to perform, and this had started to affect my performance in the matches. I was made to sit in the bench even after giving my best. This was the time I realized that there is more to life than just playing rugby. I started cycling sprees which gradually increased and in the couple of months. I was cycling distances and hiking along with it. Apart from that I was also enjoying swimming to a great extent. I was feeling the same enthusiasm in doing these activities as I felt when I was playing rugby for the first time in my school. This was I believe the discovering narrative through which my transition happened (Carless & Douglas, 2017).

Conclusion

The personality levels as analysed by Mc Adams framework, it evaluates that I have the personality traits of an athlete. My personality traits reveal my interests which have moulded me into my current personality. With the influence and motivation from my peers and teachers I was indulged into Rugby, which developed my initial years as a sporting personality. The several incidents that followed in my life took me through various phases of realization and developed traits which I have been able to evaluate through the characteristic adaptations as mentioned by Mc Adams. With the substantial development of my qualities I explored newer horizons which I understood through the narrative identity analysis.

Mc Adams theory seems to be one of the most reliable tool to analyse the personality traits of an individual. The three layer model allows a more precise and accurate analysis of the personality traits of an individual. The main benefit of using this framework is because it has the potential for critically understanding and assessing the complex nature of sports persons and athletes. It takes into account the individual differences in traits, the characteristic adaptations and life narratives which gives a holistic understanding of the athletes.

Though the framework has been extremely useful, there are a few a drawbacks in the framework. Firstly, the framework has explanatory constraints, which refers to the broad and explanatory analysis of the traits. A broad and explanative analysis might be quite complex and make it difficult to understand the trait in a more simplistic nature. There may be more attributes in understanding an athlete or a sport person than just an explanation of the three layers as presented in McAdams’ framework.  The traditional theories are of the opinion that the personality analysis can also been done by deducing their habitual traits their likes and dislikes, their preferences and choices, which also add to the personality of an individual. Mc Adams integrative framework categorizes athletes and sports person on a broader perspective.

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