Empirical Study of the Psychology of the Winner (On the Example of the Republic of Mordovia Athletes)

Abstract

The paper describes the results of empirical studies on the psychological traits of the winning athletes of international and European tournaments, with the title of Honoured Master of Sports and International Master of Sports in sports such as athletics and combat sports. The study used the following psychological and acmeological diagnostic methods: author's questionnaire named Psychology of the winner, which includes questions relating to the biographical information of athletes, intellectual and personal traits, motivation and value constructs, emotional and volitional components of personality, etc..; the Mini-Mult questionnaire (a shortened version of the Minnesota multidimensional personality test, MMPI), which assesses personal traits (tendency to asthenoneurotic, sociopathic, anxiety and mistrust, hypertemic options of personal development, touchiness, susceptibility to affective reactions doubt, emotional detachment degree, complexity of social interaction, activity, and excitability); the Cattell test 16 PF (Form A), which measures the traits and properties of the human person as character, temperament, intelligence, emotional, volitional, moral, communication, and other features. In addition, there were interviews conducted in a free form, as well as handwriting analysis was applied to signatures of the winning athletes. The authors justified the position that outstanding winning athletes are the acmeological objects. The authors develop a systematic description of the psychological traits of the winning athletes. The paper demonstrates the psychological traits of the winning athletes specialising in athletics and combat sports. The paper formulates conclusions and the urgency of further study of the psychology of the winner.