Personality and Mood in Women’s Paralympic Basketball Champions

Research on elite female athletes with disabilities is extremely rare. Therefore, using the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Cattell, Cattell, & Cattell, 1993) and Profile of Mood States (Droppleman, Lorr, & McNair, 1992), we examined differences between the top 12 athletes comprising the gold medal winning 2004 USA women’s Paralympic basketball team and 13 athletes attending the selection camp who did not make the team. Multivariate analysis of variance with follow-up tests revealed that athletes who made the Paralympic team scored higher on tough-mindedness ( M = 5.7 vs. 4.3) and lower in anxiety ( M = 5.6 vs. 7.8). For mood state, the Paralympians scored higher in vigor ( M = 19.5 vs. 14.8) and lower in depressed mood ( M = 3.9 vs. 6.7) and confusion ( M = 5.5 vs. 7.5). The effect sizes were large (e.g., Cohen’s d = 0.91 - 1.69) for all five results.