Proactive personalities, ego-identity status, and career aspiration among college student athletes

Yawen Hsu *, Frank J.h. Lu ** and Jian-Hong Liang *

(*) Department of Physical Education, Health, and Recreation, National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan
(**) Graduate Institute of Sport Coaching Science, Chinese Culture University, Taipei City, Taiwan

Citation

Hsu, Y., J.h. Lu, F., Liang, J. (2020). Proactive personalities, ego-identity status, and career aspiration among college student athletes. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 51(4), 342-358. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2020.51.342

Abstract

The research indicates that proactive personality and ego-identity status are two crucial factors related to an individual’s career, but have yet to be fully explored in college student-athletes. This study examines the relationship between proactive personality, ego-identity status, and career aspiration. In addition, the interaction between proactive personality and the various ego-identity statuses are investigated. In total, 224 college student-athletes (Mage = 20.67 ± 0.98) participated in this study. Background information, proactive personality, ego-identity status, and career aspiration were measured and were analyzed. Correlation analyses showed that both proactive personality and career aspiration were positively correlated with moratorium and identity achievement, and negatively correlated with identity diffusion. Furthermore, the interactions of proactive personality with identity diffusion, moratorium, and foreclosure were significant, and the total explanation of variance was increased by 8.8%. Future studies could focus on the special interactions between proactive personality, moratorium, and foreclosure, and its effects on student-athletes.

Keywords: Athletic identity, Career, Identity, Foreclosure, Diffusion, Moratorium, development