Personal identity in adolescent football players : An explorative study

The purpose of this study was twofold: a) To investigate dimensions and a structure of a personal identity in adolescent football players. b) To investigate a link between the players' athletic identity as a part of the personal identity and their self-esteem. An interview guide was made according to the objectives. Seven adolescent football players (four girls and three boys), who all played for the national team, were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Interesting parts were noticed and illustrative quotations were used to present the results. Twelve identity dimensions were found, six of them had not been regarded in prior studies. Football got a lot of attention in the personal identity but other dimensions were also important. Thus, football did not always have the highest priority in the participants’ lives. The relation between identity importance and prioritized behavior seemed more complicated than prior research have suggested. Public attention due to athletic success was one of the factors enhancing self-esteem. Athletic failures did, according to the participants, affect their self-esteem, in different amount however. The author discusses the results in relation to relevant literature in the identity and self-esteem area. Identity commitment theory (Stryker, 1980; Stryker & Serpe, 1994) seemed difficult to apply to the result. The link between the participants’ athletic identity and their self-esteem seemed to be more complex than prior studies have shown. It is suggested that the discrepancy between the actual-self and the ideal-self (Higgins, 1987, 1989), the disruption of the identity feedback loop (Burke, 1991) and perfectionism (Flett & Hewitt, 2002) has a stronger affect on the adolescent football players than the need for self-enhancement (Leary, 1999; Leary & Baumeister, 2000). The study implicates that significant others in the athletes’ surrounding ought to emphasize other dimensions of the athletes’ personal identity to avoid athletic identity foreclosure, thus prevent unsuccessful career transitions