RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BASIC PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND DISPOSITIONAL COPING STRATEGIES IN VOLLEYBALL

Abstract

Athletes' coping strategies are important factors that contribute to competitive achievement and psychological well-being. The first aim of the current study was to explore the direct and interactive effects of Five Factor personality dimensions on dispositional coping strategies. The second aim was to test the second-order factorial structure of the Dispositional Coping Inventory for Competitive Sport (DCICS). The sample included 166 female volleyball players of mean age 15.01 years (SD=.87), and mean sports experience of 4.81 years (SD=1.85). They completed the NEO-FFI inventory and DCICS. Explorative factor analyses indicated two second order solutions with high reliability coefficients: task- and emotion-oriented coping strategies. The Paired samples t-test showed that young female athletes more often apply task-oriented strategies than emotion-oriented strategies. The regression analysis showed that some Five-Factor personality dimensions independently predicted the use of higher order coping dimensions. Conscientiousness was the only positive predictor of task-oriented strategies. Neuroticism was positive and agreeableness is a negative predictor of emotion-oriented coping strategies. No interaction effects of personality dimensions on dispositional coping were founded. These findings suggest that the Five-Factor personality model can predict the coping strategies that athletes frequently use. Findings also emphasize the need for more studies aimed to investigate this complex relationship including potential moderator effects of different variables such as gender, sport experience, competitive achievement, and different sports disciplines.