Athlete Identity
What is identity? That itself is a big question and one that requires a ton of unpacking. While we will not be diving into a question that big, we will be exploring the athlete identity. Athlete identity, or athletic identity, is the degree to which an individual identifies with their role as an athlete and how they are recognized by others and themselves within their role as an athlete. This self-concept arises from the information an individual internalizes and its influence on how they process the information about themselves.
Yes, back to research… Just for a little bit, with a good reason.This post will highlight youth, college students, and injured athletes, for a very specific purpose that will hopefully become apparent and provide some food for thought.
Youth
More recent trends in youth athletics have encouraged a greater emphasis on sport, which has created an environment that tends to mirror societal demands for youth to engage in more competitive experiences and for them to pick a specialization (Edison et al., 2021). There has been and continues to be a debate about when youth should specialize in sport. It is an interesting debate, but a topic for another post. The other piece to consider with this trend is how youth are potentially losing access to sport for fun and being encouraged to focus on competition, which means that the potential to identify more as an athlete rises. This could be a good thing or a concerning thing. It depends. Case and point. Two studies discussed in a literature review found that higher levels of athlete identity helped protect against burnout, but when the adolescent athlete was injured the chances for depression increased (Edison et al., 2021).
Injury
Injury happens in sports, whether in football, running, dancing, or horseback riding, as examples. These injuries can be minor, to season ending, to career ending. No matter what the injury, it can be disheartening for many. So what does that have to do with athlete identity? In a recent systematic review, the following was found about athlete identity and positive associations (Renton et al., 2021):
Depressive symptom severity
Sport performance traits (eg, ego-orientation and mastery-orientation)
Social network size
Physical self-worth
Motivation
Rehabilitation overadherence
Mental toughness and playing through pain
Injury severity and functional recovery outcomes
Keep in mind that there were limitations to this study, such as the majority of the studies being with White adult male athletes and the injuries were mostly musculoskeletal in nature. Still, there are some things that we can take away from the data. Again, we have associations that can potentially be helpful like having a social network or potentially higher mental toughness to get through the injury. Support can be nice when recovering so that you are not going through it alone. However, then there are the ones that could be potentially challenging like depressive symptoms and rehabilitation overadherence. It is hard to be told that you can’t play or engage in your chosen sport. In fact, it can down right suck. So if the injury is something that can be rehabbed through, it can be easy to overdo it thinking that by working harder and pushing things, one will get better faster. This increases if more of one’s identity is tied to being an athlete.
College Students
Finally, let’s take a quick look at college athletes, specifically National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletes. In a study done by Newton et al. (2020) they identified a few themes related to athlete identity: 1) the athlete identity as part of self where there are connections between the athlete identity and personality; 2) the commitment to the identity with the daily demands and the high and low periods; and 3) the recognition of the self via social reinforcement (Newton et al., 2020). Again we can look at this data and consider a couple things. One, that the athlete identity can become dynamically connected to who a person is and can thus impact people not just in the athlete realm but also impact their lives. Two, that the environment can reinforce the athlete identity. While that can be potentially protective as was discussed above, it can also be challenging if everything that person has is wrapped up in their identity as an athlete and then all of sudden it is gone whether from injury or even retirement.
There is so much to consider when it comes to athlete identity and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully, however, you have learned something that you can take with you.
A cyclists in race wheelchair with a blurred background.
take action today moment:
In the end, the questions that this post hopes to leave you with are:
What are the implications of athlete identity throughout the lifespan? We have seen some data in this post on the impact on adolescents, adults, and college students, but now think through how this then threads through in adult life and into master’s athletes. There is research out there looking at this question if you are super curious about it, but take some time first to reflect on it yourself and formulate your own thoughts.
When considering athlete identity, what are the benefits and challenges? The post discussed many, but take some time on your own thinking about why these are the case and what you would add. Again, you could look up more via a Google search or Google Scholar search, but consider what the athlete identity does for you as a person before searching.
References
Edison, B. R., Christino, M. A., & Rizzone, K. H. (2021). Athletic identity in youth athletes: a systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(14), 7331. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147331
Newton, J., Gill, D. L., & Reifsteck, E. (2020). Athletic identity: Complexity of the “iceberg”. Journal of Athlete Development and Experience, 2(2), 69-82.
Renton, T., Petersen, B., & Kennedy, S. (2021). Investigating correlates of athletic identity and sport-related injury outcomes: a scoping review. BMJ open, 11(4), e044199