A percepção da causalidade subjacente aos resultados desportivos e a idade dos atletas

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 1999

Authors

Antonio Manuel Fonseca (Author) FADEUP

Journal

Title: Revista de Psicologia Social

Vol. 14

Pages: 3-14

ISSN: 0213-4748

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Indexing

Scopus - 1 Citation

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00Q-ABH

DOI: 10.1174/021347499760260046

Abstract (EN): The main purpose of this study was to investigate the way that athletes of different ages perceived the competitions in which they participated, specially the causes they considered as underlying the results of their sports. The study was carried out bearing in mind, not only the shortage of research on this subject, of the relations existing between the age of the individuals and the attributions they elaborate for the events in which they take part, but also the inconsistency verified in its conclusions. The sample was constituted by 270 male and female athletes who competed in the Portuguese national championships of several sports (swimming, volleyball, artistic gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics), and their ages varied between 10 and 24. The athletes, besides answering questions of a demographic type (e.g., sex, age, for how long they had been practising sports), also replied to questions regarding the competitions in which they had achieved the most significant results of their sports carreers. The subjects questioned indicated, not only details of the competitions and the results obtained, but also the causes they considered to have contributed most to these results. To evaluate these causes the athletes answered a translated and adapted version (Fonseca, 1992, 1993) of Causal Dimension Scale II (CDSII: McAuley et al., 1992). The results showed that the younger athletes considered these causes to be more internal, stable and controllable-by them but not by others-than the older athletes. The answers given by the athletes of the different age groups seemed, however, to converge in one sense: the existence of a self-esteem mechanism. Nevertheless, these mechanism seemed to assume different proportions in the athletes of the different age groups. © 1999 by Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific