Sport behaviors of Turkish soccer players: An observational study on personal and team-related dimensions

Abstract

The current study aims to explore both personal and team-related sports behavior dimensions of Turkish children soccer players. It has been argued that several personal dispositions such as achievement motivation, fear of failure, and aggression levels (Wann, Haynes, McLean, and Pullen, 2003) could be at play when the child is trying to achieve in a sports context. Among related outcomes of these personal dispositions, sports performance, teamwork (Martin, Carron, Eys, and Loughead, 2012), fairplay and sportsmanship behaviors (Arthur-Banning, Wells, Baker, and Hegreness, 2009) have been widely researched and discussed in the literature. The current study will try to explore the relationships between these dimensions from a personal disposition perspective using an observational method. The sample consisted of 79 selected male soccer players. A total of 6 teams were observed during soccer play competition games. The results revealed interesting findings regarding the relationships between several personal and team-related behavior dimensions.