The Relationship between Personality Traits and Participation in Competitive Gymnastics

Personality structure is one of the factors related to character of a person's behavior. According to Eysenck's theory, there are four main dimensions in the personality: extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and lie scale. This study is based on Eysenck's theory and the meaning of the relationship between this theory and personality traits in competitive gymnasts. The aim of the study is to build a theoretical model, which carries the personality elements related to the profile of a competitive gymnast. The hypothesis is that elite gymnasts will be characterized as introverted with low levels of psychoticism and lie scale and with high levels of neuroticism in relation to median level gymnasts and teenagers who are not involved in sports at all. The study's sample included 40 elite gymnasts, 40 median level gymnasts and 40 teen girls who are not involved in sports who answered the revised-shortened Eysenck's questionnaire (EPQR-S). In addition, part of them had been interviewed in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The data analysis has been conducted by multi-variant tests combined with qualitative analysis of the interviews. The contribution of the study in the educational field will be the understanding of the competitive gymnasts' personality traits; ranking their levels and suggesting them appropriate interventions; detection and nurturing of talents of gymnastics; professionalism of the coaches; and enrichment of the scientific knowledge which exists in personality structure. The results were low levels of psychoticism and lie scale among elite gymnasts in compare to control group and insignificant differences in extroversion-introversion and neuroticism dimensions.