Athlete position as a determinant of psychological characteristics: A comparative investigation in national volleyball players

Abstract

Knowledge of how psychological factors differ by role is necessary to maximise athlete development within team-based sports. The purpose of this study was to explore how coping style; motivation orientation and cohesion differ between men’s & women’s national team volleyball players based on their gender and the demands of their position. Eighty (80) national team male (40) and female (40) volleyball players aged 18-40 from five different playing positions (8 per gender per position: setters, liberos, attackers, blockers and universal) participated in this study. The psychological traits that were used in this study included the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28); Task and Ego Orientation Scale for Sport (TEOSQ); and Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) to measure these psychological traits were all assessed with descriptive statistics for each position for the male and female athletes. The group differences between men and women were analysed using one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey's post hoc analysis. The study results indicated that setters were more effective at coping than any other playing position while liberos had a stronger task motivation orientation and higher levels of team cohesion. Conversely, blockers and universals had lower scores for psychological resources across most variables. In addition, there were no significant differences between positions nor by gender for ego orientation. These results demonstrate the importance of playing position as a determinant of key psychological factors; therefore, volleyball mental conditioning programmes should be designed for individual playing positions and tailored to each athlete's gender to maximise performance and team cohesion at the highest levels of competition.