Narcissism in sportsmen – a truth or a stereotype?

Abstract

If sportsman is achieving considerable success and realizes his goals he is also gaining social acceptance. However the pursue of public admiration can also apply to non-successful athletes. The word narcissus in the everyday use has a straightforward negative connotation – being in love with oneself, loving only him/herself. However feeling of pride and self-content is not a symptom of a disorder but of selfacceptance which is crucial for one’s normal development, without which we are not able to function normally. In order to obtain reliable answers to the question concerning the level of narcissistic features 505 professional sportsmen took part in the study. The sports they practiced were team sports, martial arts and individual sport activities. The control group were 697 individuals who have never trained any sport professionally. In the study we used Ruskin’s and Hall’s Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Polish adaptation by Bazińska and Drat-Ruszczak, 2000), were narcissism is considered as personality variable. Results of presented research of narcisstic sportsmen stereotype – nonathletes do not differ from athletes. It is concluded that difference in narcissism between athletes and non-athletes is stereotypic. Only women training martial arts characterize higher level of narcissistic features