A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PERSONALITY STYLE, STRESS AND RELATIONSHIP TO PHYSICAL DISEASE AMONG AHWAZ ATHLETES AND NON-ATHLETES 2002

Athletes are most active and most healthy persons of any society who can contribute in promoting success, advancement and stability of their community. Generally healthy individual choose exercise as profession. Maintenance of healthy athletic activity is made possible with continuous practice in athletic–arena. Choosing athletic field is related to personality of an individual. Sport psychology studies the role of psychological factors in sport, exercise, and physical activity. It aims are to prepare the participant athletes to gain specific mental, behavioral, psychosocial, and emotional control skills during sport, exercise and physical activity contexts. Evaluating the behavioral–mental capabilities of the athletes, their morale, motivation and probability of success in competitions are assessed. The aim of this study was to identify the personality styles, rate of chronic and acute stresses and their relationship with the physical diseases among athletes in comparison with the non–athletic individuals. In this research, 66 athletes (54 females, 12 males) from various athletic fields were selected by simple sampling procedure. Sample population and their non- athlete counterpart group completed both Millon Behavioral Health Inventory (MBHI) and data forms. Research finding indicated that there was no significant difference between chronic and acute stress experienced in both group. But there was significant difference between personality styles the two groups and occurrence and number of physical diseases with 99 percent certainty. The results suggest that physical diseases affect athletes less frequently than non-athletics when exposed to similar stressful conditions.