HYPERCOMPETITIVE ATTITUDE AMONG ATHLETES: A BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS

Maintaining competitive attitude provides confidence, focus and ability to achieve but over competitiveness can result in maladjusted behavior and lead to neurotic behavior. The present investigation was focused to explore the hypercompetitive attitude among track and field athletes across gender. The subjects were intercollegiate medalist and non-medalist athletes, age ranging from 18 to 25 years. The subjects objectively responded to a 26 items’ Hypercompetitive Attitude Scale (Ryckman et al., 1990). Researchers tested the Null hypothesis by employing ‘t’ test to find out the comparative differentials in hypercompetitive attitude between track and field athletes, medalist and non-medalist athletes and the gender groups. Findings of the study revealed that the athletic groups i.e. the track and field groups and medalist and non-medalist groups had not demonstrated any significant differences. However, significant differences were noticed among the gender groups. Results revealed that only medalist female athletes exhibited significantly higher level of hypercompetitive attitude as compared to the male athletes. Further in-depth investigation is needed to observe the intense attributes of hyper competitiveness in relation to sports performance