PhD, Associate Professor N.S. Shumova¹
Dr.Hab., PhD, Professor Y.V. Baykovsky¹
Postgraduate student L. Siuntse^1
1Russian State University of Physical Education, Sports, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPE), Moscow

Keywords: identity, individuality, valuation bipololarity, field-independence, self-mobilization, interpersonal relationship.

Background. The individualism versus collectivism rating (the Hofstede Power Distance Indexing [3]) tests of the Chinese and Russian basketball players yielded the PDI of 20 and 50, respectively – that means that the Chinese team culture is much more collectivistic than the Russian – modestly individualistic one. It should be noted that the modern basketball game tactics is largely determined by the individual qualities and skills, and this is the reason why the modern basketball training systems in Russia are increasingly individualized, with the individual performance being rated, controlled and improved using the relevant game statistics and tests. The Chinese basketball training systems appear to underestimate if not neglect the game performance statistical data which are often inaccessible and unreported.

Objective of the study was to make a comparative analysis of the personality profiles versus the competitive success rates of the Russian and Chinese student basketball teams.

Methods and structure of the study. Subject to the study were the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sports, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPE) team (n=15, Russia) and Beijing Sport University team (n=15, China) of 18-23 year-olds having the sport records of 5-13 years and qualified Class II, Class I and Candidate Masters of Sport.

We used for the study purposes the following six popular mental performance tests generating 82 test rates: Cattel’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF); social metrics; Leary Personality Test adapted by L.N. Sobchik; L. Lemyre Psychological Stress Measure (PSM-25); R. Tessier and L. Fillion Test  adapted by Vodopyanova; K.U. Ettrich test; and the Who am I? Test adapted by A.S. Tkhostov et al. The resultant test data were classified on the age-, competitive-success-, sport-record- and qualification-specific basis.

Results and discussion. The tests yielded significant differences of the Russia and China teams in 31 test rates out of 82 (37.8%) and 627 paired correlation ratios out of 3,321 (18.9%, see Tables 1 and 2). The test data were analyzed to find correlations of the significantly different test rates versus the relevant social metrics and mental stress tolerance tests data.

The test data showed the Chinese team being dominated by the dependent, obedient, conservative players, with the few team leaders having to work hard to do most of the work for the competitive success. These leaders were tested with the relatively higher implicit trainability rates and the higher individuality to sociality ratios. On the whole, progress and competitive success of the Chinese team was found limited by the fear of errors and excessive concentration on own real and imaginary drawbacks, risks of failures, individual fantasies and cloud castles.

Table 1. Significant differences of the test teams by the Mann-Whitney U-criterion

Table 2. Self-rated groups in the Russia and China men’s basketball teams, compared by the Student t-criterion

The Russia team tests rated only a few players with the same qualities (obedience, dependence, restraint etc.) that were found dominant in the China team. The overall competitive performance of the Russia team was found determined by the majority of authoritarian individuals with their categorical opinions and leadership abilities – who largely control the minority of the less capable, dependent, obedient and low profiled players. The team leaders were found not only leading in the scoring actions and other performance test rates but also acting as emotional controllers and balances of the teamwork i.e. demonstrating, among other things, the high stress tolerance and the ability to settle down emotional outbursts of the teammates to spearhead the teamwork. The Russian players were tested significantly more emotionally mature, individual, extraverted, self-controlled, pragmatic and focused to the teamwork than the Chinese; with every interpersonal conflict in the team productively settled by the team leaders generating the ideas for the individual and team successes.

Conclusion

• The traditional Chinese behavioral standards dominated by restraint, submission, obedience, dependence, restraint etc. associated with the fears of errors and excessive concentration on own real and imaginary drawbacks, risks of failures, individual fantasies and cloud castles – were found to largely  limit the competitive progress and accomplishments. The Chinese team leaders were found less prone to control the teamwork and instead prefer working hard on their own for the competitive success;
• Extraverted players in the Russian team were tested to effectively cement the teamwork i.e. consolidate the individual performances by their active mental efforts to inspire the team with their ideas;
• Competitive success of the Russian team was found largely due to the mental pressure and control of the field-dependent team members by the field-independent ones.

References

1. Bleer A.N., Baykovskiy Yu.V., Shumova N.S., Chigireva V.A. Stress-faktory v sinkhronnom plavanii [Stress factors in synchronized swimming]. Sportivny psikholog, 2017, no. 2 (45), pp. 29-32.
2. Vykhandu L.K. Primenenie matematicheskikh metodov v biologii [Mathematical methods in biology: application specifics]. Leningrad: LSU publ., 1964.
3. Susokolov A.A. Kultura i obmen: vvedenie v ekonomicheskuyu antropologiyu [Culture and exchange: introduction to economic anthropology]. Moscow: SPSL «Russkaya panorama» publ., 2006. 446 p.
4. Shumova N.S., Babieva N.S., Baykovskiy Yu.V. Formirovanie navyka samootsenivaniya [Self-rating capacity building in female volleyball players]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2018. no. 11. pp. 14-16.
5. Shumova N.S., Baykovskiy Y.V. Komponenty psikhicheskoy deyatelnosti sportsmenov i ikh rol v obespechenii nadezhnosti deystviy v ekstremalnykh usloviyakh [Components of athletes’ mental activity and their role in reliability of actions under extreme conditions]. Ulyanovsk: Zebra publ., 2018.

Corresponding author: shumova@interwave.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to make a comparative analysis of the personality profiles versus the competitive success rates of the Russian and Chinese student basketball teams. Subject to the study were the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sports, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPE) team ((n=15, Russia) and Beijing Sport University team (n=15, China) of 18-23 year olds having the sport records of 5-13 years and qualified Class II to Candidate Masters of Sport. Applied for the study purposes were 6 popular (widely used in Russia and abroad) mental performance tests generating 82 test rates. Based on the study data and analysis we found that the Chinese team leaders are less prone to control the teamwork and prefer working hard on their own for competitive success. Extraverted players in the Russian team were tested to effectively cement the teamwork i.e. consolidate the individual performances by active own mental efforts to inspire the team with their ideas. Competitive success of the Russian team was found largely due to the mental pressure and control of the field-dependent team members by the field-independent ones.