How Motivated are You? Exploring the Differences Between Motivational Profiles and Personality Traits

Motivation is vital for performance and encompasses a range of processes and desires (Maslow 1970; Beck 1983; Wentzel 1999). These desires stimulate an action or behaviour, caused and directed by motives where the individual identifies and prioritises goals to be achieved (Deci and Ryan 2000, 2008; Roberts et al. 2004).
This study investigated motivation between different sports personality types using a cross sectional design. Participants (n=239), who regularly participated in sports sessions, completed the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS; Pelletier et al. 1995) and an adapted Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI; Eysenck and Eysenck 1964). Results showed that extroverted athletes reported significantly higher intrinsic motivation (IM) than introverted athletes (p = .006) more specifically this was IM-to accomplish (p = .029) and IM-to experience stimulation (p = .001). Athletes high in neuroticism showed significantly more amotivation than their more stable counterparts (p = .001). The findings suggest that some sports participants can experience neuroticism which is also related to high levels of amotivation. Extroverted athletes may focus on utilising both intrinsic and extrinsic motives, in line with Roberts et al. (2004), resulting in higher levels of overall motivation for this study. Introverted athletes showed less intrinsic motivation than expected which may demonstrate a conflict between the internal focus of the introvert and the extrinsic nature of sport as discussed by Hong and O’Neil (2001) and Pushkar et al. (2002).