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Context: The relationship between personality traits, gender and type of sports has been of great interest to sport psychologists. The aim of the present study was to find gender differences on personality traits across various groups of college students who had participated in intercollege competitions, such as, yoga practitioners, aquatics and athletes. Settings and design: for this purpose 90 inter collegiate athletes, yoga practitioners and swimmers were selected within the age range of 18-24 years. Material and method: Dimensional Personality Inventory by Bhargava (1998) was administered. It assessed six personality dimensions. Statistical analysis: To find gender differences independent sample t-test was used. Results: Results showed yoga practitioners to be showing significant gender differences with males being higher than females on assertiveness, and female yogis being higher than males on activity. Similarly, gender difference was also found among aquatics/ swimmers on personality traits of assertiveness and emotional stability. Women scored higher on emotional stability while men scored higher on assertiveness. But the results revealed no significant gender difference on any of the personality dimensions among athletes. Conclusion: This indicates that the nature of fitness activity that one indulges in also has an impact on one’s personality. For instance, yoga being a soft and feminine form of fitness yielded gender difference where females were soft and submissive in comparison to males who were more assertive. But interestingly, this gender difference faded away when male and female athletes were compared with each other. This could be attributed to the nature of hard training that is offered to athletes and therefore minimizes their gender differences. Thus, the nature of sport played has a role to play in personality dispositions. Some forms of fitness exercises build masculine traits in an individual while other forms of fitness forms cater to the feminine aspects of one’s personality. The study has implications in understanding gender differences across different areas of sports.

The aim of the current investigation is to find gender differences among yoga practitioners, athletes and aquatics on various dimensions of personality. The proposed hypotheses have been partially accepted

Personality profile of Yoga practitioners

Yoga is complex, and it comprises of different elements, including physical poses, breathwork, concentration, ethics, spirituality, inward attention and self awareness or self knowledge (Park, Braun & Siegel, 2015). A few studies have found links between personality traits and yoga practice, such as, yoga practitioners demonstrate lower levels of neuroticism or emotional instability relative to non-yoga practitioners (Venkatesh, Pal, Negi & Verma, 1994). Also, yoga practitioners are more health conscious and high on internal locus of control. In other words, they believe that they are in control of their life outcomes and don't blame fate or authority for any mishappening as much as they blame themselves (Cramer et al., 2013).

Other personality traits observed among yoga practitioners are mindfulness which is the ability to stay in the moment.

Personality profile of Athletes

A study conducted by Lopez and Stanelices (2012) found athletes to be scoring higher than non-athletes on communicativeness index. Athletes were more open and expressive than non-athletes. They also scored more on being active and having strong need to achieve in comparison with yogis, who are less ambitious than athletes. Athletes have been found to exhibit strong sense of perseverance, conscientiousness and traditional attitude towards life and discipline (Lopez & Santelices, 2012). They have more respect and regard for elders which comes from the training received by their coaches and mentors. They understand the value of being disciplined and respectful towards others. Studies have also shown that athletes are more extroverted than non-athletes (Egloff & Gruhn, 1996)

Personality traits of Swimmers

Very few studies have worked upon understanding the personality traits of swimmers. Since swimming is a non-contact sport, it comes with qualities that make swimmers more reserved, less aggressive than other sports, apprehensive, self sufficient, enthusiastic and confident (Cavallera, Passerini & Pepe, 2013). In some studies swimmers have been characterized by moderate scores on well-being, satisfaction with life and emotional independency.

Dimensional Personality Inventory (DPI, Bhargava, 1999) – To assess personality of the subjects, DPI scale developed by Bhargava (1999) was used. It consists of 60 statements in both Hindi and English languages. Each statement is followed by three response options to be selected by the subject: yes, no and undecided. Scoring is done in terms of 2 points for ‘Yes’, 1 point for ‘Undecided’ and zero for ‘No.’ This scale measures six important personality dimensions which are as follows: 1. Activity – Passivity trait – the extent to which the person is active, enthusiastic, regular and consistent versus the extent to which the person is passive, slow, dull, lethargic or irregular at tasks. Higher score indicates an active personality while lower score indicates a passive personality. 2. Enthusiastic - Non enthusiastic – the extent to which the person is full of life, open hearted and socially outgoing versus the extent to which the person is shy, inhibited, and disinterested in social activities. Higher score indicates great levels of enthusiasm while lower score indicates non-enthusiastic personality. 3. Assertive – Submissive – the extent to which the person is bold, independent, unconvinced by others’ ideas and straight forward versus the extent to which the individual is afraid to speak his or her views, accepts dominance and hesitant to be straight forward. Higher score indicates assertiveness while lower score indicates submissiveness. 4. Trusting – Suspicious - the extent to which the individual is skeptical of others versus the extent to which he or she can trust others easily. Individuals who are high on trusting trait are good team workers, free of jealousies and tolerant of others. On the other hand, individuals who are suspicious of others misunderstand others often and blame other team members for their own failures. High score indicates trusting personality while lower score on this dimension indicates a suspicious personality. 5. Non-depressive – Depressive – it indicates the extent to which an individual is relaxed, happy, satisfied and composed versus the extent to which an individual is helpless, hopeless, worthless, depressed and suicidal. Higher scores on this dimension indicate a relaxed and contented personality. Lower scores indicate depressed personality. 6. Emotional Stability – Emotional Instability – individuals who score high on emotional stability are emotionally intelligent, mature, stable-minded and well adjusted. On the other hand, individuals who are emotionally unstable exhibit features of being easily annoyed, irritable, worrying, fearful, sensitive and prone to mood swings. This scale has shown satisfactory reliability and validity coefficients (Bhargava, 1999).

The sample comprised of 90 subjects in the age range of 18-24 years who had participated in various inter-college sports competitions. The sample was further divided into 30 individuals who were practicing yoga (15 males, 15 females), 30 individuals who were athletes (15 males, 15 females) and 30 individuals who were from aquatics category (15 males, 15 females). Therefore, the overall sample comprised of 45 males and 45 females. The participants were selected from various government and private colleges of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali.

Table 1: Showing Descriptive Statistics and t-ratios comparing Male and Female Yogis on Personality Traits

		Male Yogis (n=15)		Female Yogis (n=15)
S.no	Personality Traits	Mean	S.D	Mean	S.D	t-ratio
1	Activity – Passivity	13.07	1.98	14.93	2.94	2.04*
2	Enthusiastic – Non-enthusiastic	12.42	2.94	13.40	2.20	1.26
3	Assertive –Submissive	12.87	2.04	10.27	3.08	2.51*
4	Suspicious – Trusting	9.53	2.20	7.60	5.64	1.08
5	Depressive – Non Depressive	8.93	2.56	8.87	4.40	0.04
6	Emotional Instability – Emotional Stability	8.47	3.08	7.07	3.86	1.11

*p<.05

Table 2: Showing Descriptive Statistics and t-ratios comparing Male and Female Athletes on Personality Traits

		Male Athletes (n=15)		Female Athletes (n=15)
S.no	Personality Traits	Mean	S.D	Mean	S.D	t-ratio
1	Activity – Passivity	14.80	2.37	14.27	2.31	.62
2	Enthusiastic – Non-enthusiastic	13.60	2.10	13.73	2.55	.16
3	Assertive –Submissive	10.27	2.28	10.33	3.70	.06
4	Suspicious – Trusting	8.00	3.36	9.40	3.54	1.11
5	Depressive – Non Depressive	8.00	4.21	9.87	3.27	1.36
6	Emotional Instability – Emotional Stability	7.40	4.19	9.73	4.17	1.53

*p<.05

Table 3: Showing Descriptive Statistics and t-ratios comparing Male and Female from Aquatics group on Personality Traits

		Male Athletes (n=15)		Female Athletes (n=15)
S.no	Personality Traits	Mean	S.D	Mean	S.D	t-ratio
1	Activity – Passivity	13.33	3.66	11.47	2.90	1.55
2	Enthusiastic – Non-enthusiastic	14.20	3.23	14.33	2.69	.12
3	Assertive –Submissive	12.93	3.59	10.27	3.10	2.17*
4	Suspicious – Trusting	7.00	3.16	9.00	2.88	1.81
5	Depressive – Non Depressive	8.27	4.37	8.73	2.87	.35
6	Emotional Instability – Emotional Stability	6.73	2.02	9.47	3.56	2.59**

*p<.05

**p<.01

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and t-ratios for gender difference among yoga practitioners on different personality traits.

Table 2 shows descriptive statistics and t-ratios for gender difference among athletes on different personality traits.

Table 3 shows descriptive statistics and t-ratios for gender difference among athletes on different personality traits.

The aim of the current investigation was to find gender differences among yoga practitioners, athletes and aquatics on various dimensions of personality. The proposed hypotheses have been partially accepted.

Gender differences among yoga practitioners

Table 1 shows significant differences between male and female yoga practitioners on two personality traits only. Results revealed a significant gender difference on Activity-Passivity and Assertiveness-Submissiveness. A glance at Table 1 shows that female yogis scored significantly higher than male yogis on Activeness. On the other hand, male yoga practitioners scored significantly higher than female yoga practitioners on Assertiveness. Females showed more disposition towards submissiveness.  Therefore, hypothesis 1 has been partially accepted.

The same finding can be confirmed by prior researches as well. It has been found that females are socialized to remain submissive, especially, in patriarchal societies. Studies have found that younger women are more submissive than men because these characteristics are embedded in our Indian culture’s socialization practices, wherein women are taught to be submissive, not ask too many questions and remain conservative. The same attributes can be found among female yogis in the current study as well with men being assertive while women being submissive (Onyeizubo, 2003).

These personality differences can be directly observed in our media and Bollywood movies as well. In a recent analysis of 4,000 Bollywood movies (Madaan, Aggarwal, Mehta et al., 2018) researchers found that the personality of an “ideal indian women” is shown as someone who is submissive, self-sacrificing, and controlled. On the other hand, women who are individualistic, independent and assertive are shown as bad and westernized. Therefore, the difference on this dimension of personality among male yoga and female yoga practitioners can be attributed to the culture in which we live.

In the current study, results also show women yoga practitioners to be scoring higher than male yoga practitioners on activity. This is because studies have shown that women are inherently more flexible than men. Therefore, when it comes to practicing yoga, their personality disposition is more towards activity side. A recent survey conducted on 2625 yoga practitioners also found that 84.5% of the sample was females in comparison to 15.3% of males. This explains why females are more active in yogic practices (Yoga Anatomy, 2017).

Gender differences among athletes

With regards to second hypothesis of the study, i.e., expected gender differences on male and female athletes, results are not consonant with the hypothesis. The results revealed no significant gender difference on personality dimensions of athletes. This could be because athletic women also develop masculine personality traits of activeness, assertiveness, boldness, enthusiasm and so on as a result of intensive coaching and training experiences.

Orthodox and traditional ideas that “girls don't sweat,” “girls don't run,” has been challenged over the past few years (Woolum, 1998). The reasons for lack of gender differences among athletes on personality traits in the current study could be because of gender equality and feminism that has been on the rise in the past few years (Chaudhiri, 2012).

Further, some of the personality traits studied in this research are masculine versus feminine in nature. The masculine traits are that of assertiveness, activity, and display of enthusiasm. Since women who train as athletes are exposed to such training environments, they are not expected to differ from men on the above measured traits. 

The same can be confirmed in a study conducted by Wolowik and Radziszewska (2014) who found that women athletes defy the traditional femininity roles and display personality attributes that are masculine in nature. This stands to be especially true for women from combat sports.

It is interesting to note that in the current investigation there were gender differences among yoga practitioners but not among athletes. This indicates that somewhere the nature of sport or exercise also influences personality characteristics. Yoga being more soft and soothing in nature, could not transform females from being submissive to assertive. On the contrary, the energetic and hardcore nature of athlete’s training can make men and women alike on various personality traits, thereby minimizing gender differences.

Gender differences among swimmers

Looking at Table 3 one can see emerging gender differences among aquatics/swimmers on personality traits of assertiveness-submissiveness and emotional stability-instability. Therefore, partially supporting hypothesis 3. The results showed female swimmers to be scoring higher than male swimmers on emotional stability. On the other hand, males scored lower than females on emotional stability. The same can be found among other samples of the population. For example, a study conducted by Sahu and Das (2016) also found females to be scoring higher than males on emotional stability.

But there are some contrary findings that have shown males to be scoring higher on emotional stability (Ahmad, Bangash and Khan, 2009). This gender difference controversy hasn't been completely resolved and also depends upon the aspects of emotional stability that are being measured.

Male swimmers scored significantly higher than female swimmers on assertiveness. The same has been explored in one of the oldest research conducted by Matheney (1973), such that male intercollegiate swimmers were found to be scoring higher on Cattell’s personality dimensions of brightness, assertiveness, independence, aggression, stubbornness and competitiveness.

Therefore, the current study tells us how different sport activities can influence personality and that one must develop interventions to enhance athletes’ performance based on the type of sport that they play and the prominent personality traits related to that particular sport.

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