Personality and temperamental determinants of styles of coping with stress in male and female football players

The aim of this paper was to determine the patterns of personality and temperament conditions for coping with stress in football players. The study examined 252 people (168 men, 84 women, the average age was 24.09 years). The athletes were representatives of the Ekstraklasa, and the I and II football Liga. They formed 3 groups: the fi rst group comprised men from the Ekstraklasa, the second - men from the II Liga and the third - women from the Ekstraklasa and the I Liga. The research made use of the following tools: NEO- FFI Personality Inventory in the Polish adaptation by Zawadzki et al. (1998), FCB - TI Temperament Questionnaire (1997), Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) by Endler and Parker, in the Polish adaptation by Strelau et al. (2007). Analysis of the results showed that agreeableness (AG), conscientiousness (CS) and perseverance (PE) proved to be important predictors of the task-oriented coping (TOC). Emotion-oriented coping (EOC) is conditioned by: neuroticism (NEU), agreeableness (AG), conscientiousness (CS) and perseverance (PE). In the case of avoidance coping (AOC), extraversion (E) and activity (A) turned out to be important predictors. However, the style of coping oriented towards engagement in substitute activities (involving in substitute activities - ISA) is conditioned by: neuroticism (NEU) and extraversion (E). Extraversion is also the predictor of dealing with stress oriented towards searching for social contacts (social contacts seeking – SCS).