Selecting a Suitable Sport: The Influence of Attachment Styles on How Collegiate Athletes Choose Their Sports

Abstract

Attachment styles are established throughout infancy and shape the way in which individuals feel, reason, and operate across various types of relationships. The objective of the current study was to analyze how attachment styles influence collegiate athletes and the ways in which their athletic careers can be maximized based on the functionality of their attachment style in group-oriented environments. I looked at the attachment styles of 143 Princeton University student-athletes who play a variety of individual and team sports. Participants completed the Relationship Questionnaire, the Opener Scale, and the Perceived Partner Responsiveness scale to assess their attachment styles, ability to elicit intimate disclosure from others, and feelings of being validated, understood, and cared for by others. I hypothesized that securely attached athletes would be more likely to play team sports, would report higher scores of responsiveness, and would feel more validated, understood, and cared for by others than insecurely attached athletes. Results indicated that securely attached athletes are significantly more likely to play team sports than insecurely attached athletes. For responsiveness, the marginally significant interaction between gender and sport type suggested that female individual sport athletes are more likely than male individual sport athletes to successfully elicit intimate disclosure from others. For validation, the marginally significant main effect of sport type on responsiveness implied that team sport athletes are more likely than individual sport athletes to feel validated, understood, and cared for by others.