Toward an Expanded Measure of Athletic Identity: The Inclusion of Public and Private Dimensions

Abstract

The link between a strong identification with the athletic self-concept and well-being, commitment, and effort in athletes has been established in numerous research projects. However, current measures of athletic identity do not specifically acknowledge the public and private aspects of the athlete role and their differential influence on behavior. The goal of the present project was to create a short, psychometrically sound scale that measured these dimensions. Our scale (Public-Private Athletic Identity Scale; PPAIS) was validated using over 1,000 nonathletes, recreational athletes, current collegiate athletes, and retired athletes. We used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to establish the structure of the scale and examined validity by comparing and contrasting the PPAIS with other existing athletic identity measures. Regressions also were used to show that the PPAIS enhances prediction of behavioral measures over other identity scales.