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INTRODUCTION

Basketball is a complex polystructural variable activity characteristic for its cyclic and acyclic motion types that are preceding the main goal of the game, shooting the ball into the basket, as well as preventing the opponent player to make a shot. Basketball has complex demands that require a combination of individual skills, team plays, tactics, and motivational aspects (Trninic, Perica, & Dizdar, 2001). Certainly, success in basketball depends mostly on the levels of specific basketball motor abilities and skills, but also on the particular psychological factors, like cognitive abilities and conative dimensions (Becker, 1981; Karalejic, & Jakovljevic, 2008). Conative dimensions are manifest and latent structures which make a construct of human personality and are responsible for human behavior, they help to explain how knowledge and emotions are translated into behavior in human beings. Coaches and sport psychologists discus the specific psychological structure of an athlete's personality. It may be a special combination of personality dispositions which should represent good conditions for successful work, especially in the process of selection. One of the most important approaches in basketball training is the relationship between coaches and players. A coach has to be a very good psychologist. Studies of psychological profiles and the personalities of athletes is present in many sports (Junge et al. 2000) and then in basketball as well (Maddi & Hess, 1992). Svoboda (1993) has indicated a significant difference in personality characteristics between excellent (stars) and poor quality (feeble) basketball players. Conative dimensions play a significant part in a basketball player's actions/ reactions (Becker, 1981; Horga & Milanovic, 1983, from Jakovljevic, Karalejic, & Lazarevic, 2010). These studies show the importance of conative dimensions for a basketball player's performance and successes. In our research we have chosen a few important conative characteristics and their inter-relations at the elite male senior basketball players in A1 Croatian Championship. The Big Five Model or the Five-Factor Model (FFM) is substantially descriptive, with the emphasis on the taxonomic aspect, that is, on the way in which personality can be divided into a smaller number of fundamental constructs (Jakovljevic, Karalejic, & Lazarevic, 2010). According to that theory, personality can be described by five factors: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and intellect (Pervin & John, 1997). Hardiness is an individual differences variable that develops early in life and is reasonably stable over time, though amenable to change under certain conditions (Maddi & Kobasa, 1987).  Hardy persons have a high sense of life and work commitment, greater sense of control, and are more open to change and challenges in life.  Perceived Group Cohesion is described by Carron et al. (1985). In their conceptual model, cohesion is considered to be a result of four primary constructs: Individual Attractions to the Group-Task, Individual Attractions to the Group-Social, Group Integration-Task  and Group Integration-Social. Multidimensional Perfectionism in Sport is the perfectionism trait that is exponed only in a sport situations. It has four aspects: Personal Standards, Concern Over Mistakes, Perceived Parental Pressure and Perceived Coach Pressure. Unidimensional Perfectionism is a concept made by Burns (Ivanov, & Penezic, 2004), and it describes generalized but negative perfectionism. 
The aim of this study was to investigate the latent structure in the set of conative characteristics of Croatian elite male senior basketball players.

METHOD
Participants and procedure.
Population from which the purposeful sample of participants was drawn represented by sport success top Croatian senior basketball players, who played in nine men's senior teams of A-1 Croatian Men's Basketball League in 2006/2007: «Cedevita», «Svjetlost», «Borik», «Kvarner», «Dubrava», «Dubrovnik», «Alkar», «Šibenik» and «Osijek». The average chronological age was 23. The final sample of participants (74 basketball players) was selected from the initial sample of 107 players. The criteria for selection of a player into the final sample of respondents was the number of minutes in play (minimum 10 minutes per game), i.e. the number of games played (minimum eight games played in championship). The players were examined between sixth and eighth round of A-1 league championship (from December 2006 until mid January 2007).

Variables.
In Table 1 we show the main characteristics of the measuring instruments (number of items, estimation scales) for all the dimensions of chosen conative characteristics, with the reliabilities measured in the our research. We have found that all the instruments for measuring all conative dimensions have a satisfying reliability, except the one dimension of hardiness (commitment).

Data analysis
Standard descriptive statistic was applied. To evaluate the latent structure of conative dimensions, a Principal Components analysis was used, with Varimax Rotation. We have used Pearson correlations for calculationg intercorrelations between specific dimensions in each conative characteristics. Data processing was done in the statistical program Statistica.

Conative characteristics and instruments
Characteristic	Reliability (Cronbach’s a)	Variables (scales)	Measuring Instruments	Number of items
Hardiness	.45	Commitment	Short Hardiness Scale (Bartone, 1995, translated and adopted by Kardum, I.) – SHC 4-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by `strongly disagree' (0) and `strongly agree' (3)	5
	.52	Control		5
	.68	Challenge		5
Perfectionism	.69	Unidimensional Perfectionism	Burns's Perfectionism Scale (translated and adopted by Penezić, Ivanov, & Proroković, 1998) – BPS 5-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by `strongly disagree' (1) and `strongly agree' (5)	10
	.62	Personal Standards	Multidimensional Sport Perfectionism Scale (Dunn, Causgrove Dunn, & Syrotnik, 2002, translated and adopted by Sindik, J.) – MSSP 5-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by `strongly disagree' (1) and `strongly agree' (5)	7
	.77	Concern Over Mistakes		8
	.61	Perceived Parental Pressure		9
	.68	Perceived Coach Pressure		6
Big Five Personality Traits	.56	Extraversion	IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers 50 items (translated and adopted by Mlačić, B., 2002) – IPIP50 5-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by `strongly disagree' (1) and `strongly agree' (5)	10
	.73	Agreeableness		10
	.71	Conscientiousness		10
	.65	Emotional Stability		10
	.68	Intellect		10
Percieved Group Cohesion	.55	Individual Attractions to the Group-Social	The Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Brawley & Widmeyer, 1985, translated and adopted by Sindik, J.) – GEQ 9-point Likert scale anchored at the extremes by `strongly disagree' (1) and `strongly agree' (9)	5
	.66	Individual Attractions to the Group-Task		4
	.68	Group Integration-Social		4
	.68	Group Integration-Task		5
Total		17 variables	5 instruments	123 items

Table 2.
Descriptive statistics for all the dimensions of all measuring instruments

Table 3.
Latent structure of the set of conative characteristics and perceived group cohesion at elite senior basketball players– Principal Components, Varimax rotation

REFERENCES

Becker, M. B. (1981). An Investigation into the Cognitive and Personality Dimensions of Basketball Athletes. Thesis (Ph.D.). San Diego: School of Human Behavior, United States International University.

Carron, A. V., Widmeyer, W. N., & Brawley, L. R. (1985). The development of an instrument to measure cohesion in sport teams: the group environment questionnaire, Journal of sport psychology, 7: 244-266.

Horga, S., & Milanovic, D. (1983). Utjecaj konativnih regulatornih mehanizama na uspješnost u košarci.[Influence of conative regulation mechanisms on success in basketball]. Kineziologija, 15(2): 45-52.

Ivanov, L., & Penezic, Z. (2004). Burnsova skala perfekcionizma. [Burn's Perfectionism Scale]. In A. Proroković, K. Lackovic-Grgin, V. Cubela, Z. Penezic (ed.), Zbirka psihologijskih skala i upitnika, 2: 13-18, Zadar: Faculty of Psilosophy. 

Jakovljevic, S., Karalejic, & M., Lazarevic, Lj. (2010). The latent structure of conative dimensions of elite senior and junior basketball players. Facta Universitatis Physical Education and Sport, 8(1): 21–30.

Junge, A., Dvorak, J. Rösch, D., Graf-Baumann, T., Chomiak, J., & Peterson, L. (2000). Psychological and Sport-Specific Characteristics of Football Players. Am J Sports Med September 28(5): 22-28.

Karalejic, M., & Jakovljevic, S. (2008). Teorija i metodika košarke. [Theory and methodic of basketball]. Beograd: Faculty of sport and physical education.

Maddi, S.R., & Hess, M.J. (1992). Personality hardiness and success in basketball. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 23(4): 360-368.

Maddi, S.R. & Kobasa, S.C. (1984).  The Hardy Executive.  Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin.

Pervin, A.L., & John, P.O. (1997). Personality: Theory and research. 7th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Svoboda, B., (1993). Analysis of personality studies of top basketball players. Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Kinanthropologica, 29(1): 57-61.

Trninic S., Perica, A., & Dizdar, D. (2001). Criteria for the situation related efficiency evaluation of the elite basketball players. In D. Milanovic (ed). Proceedings of the Kinesiology for 21. century, pp. 236-239. Opatija: Faculty of Kinesiology.

 

LATENTNE DIMENZIJE KONATIVNIH KARAKTERISTIKA VRHUNSKIH SENIORSKIH KOŠARKAŠA

Sažetak
Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je ispitati latentnu strukturu skupa konativnih karakteristika vrhunskih hrvatskih seniorskih košarkaša. Ispitali smo namjerni uzorak od 74 košarkaša, koji su igrali u 9 muških ekipa A-1 hrvatske košarkaške lige,  odgovarajućim mjernim instrumentima. Rezultati faktorske analize su pokazali da prostor konativnih karakteristika i percipirane grupne kohezije mogu zadovoljavajuće objasniti četiri faktora. Valjanost psiholoških mjernih instrumenata, primijenjenih na uzorku košarkaša, dobro je potvrđena.

Ključne riječi: glavne komponente, psihološke osobine, košarka, objašnjena varijanca

Corespondence to:

Joško Sindik, Ph.D.
University of Dubrovnik,
Dubrovnik, Croatia,
Tel. +385 1 2348 085,
E-mail: josko.sindik@zg.t-com.hr

 

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