Saturday's heroes: A psychological portrait of college football players.

60 college football players were compared with 60 students who had lettered in football in high school but were no longer playing competitively and 60 peers who had never lettered in any sport. Four instruments were used for assessing differences: the Profile of Mood States, the Levenson Multidimensional Locus of Control Scale (LOC), the California F Scale, and the Sport Mental Attitude Survey (SMAS). Results show the football players to be significantly less depressed, fatigued, and confused than the nonplaying Ss. Football players were more powerful-other oriented in LOC and scored significantly higher on authoritarianism than the ex-athletes, who in turn were more authoritarian than nonathletes. The consistency of the authoritarianism results in both current players and ex-players suggests that football selects for or nurtures a narrow-minded, conventional, and conservative personality, not an altogether positive factor in the otherwise generally healthy personality that emerged in this study. Finally, results from the SMAS indicate that football players place much emphasis on the mental aspects of physical competition. (French abstract) (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Saturday's heroes: A psychological portrait of college football players. Academic Article