Studies PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SERBIAN MALE WHEELCHAIR AND PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS

In the last fi fteen years the number of disabled persons has increased in the Balkan region mainly as a result of traumatic events in this area (Organization War Veterans of Serbia, 2012). Especially, there are a certain number of young people who continue to live their lives with some gained physical disability. Therefore, more and more eff orts have been made to enhance the quality of their lives. Sport, as social phenomena, may achieve very positive infl uence on the health and social state of people with disability who practice it (Miyahara et al., 2008; Wells & Hooker, 1990). There are psycho-social benefi ts of participating in sports for people with disability (Campbell & Jones, 1995; Hutzler & Bar-Eli, 1993). People with disability who participate in sports have been shown to handle pressure and stressful situations better than those who do not exercise. They also experience less depression, confusion, tension and anger (Campbell & Jones, 1994; Paulsen, French, & Sherrill, 1990). In sport activities of athletes with disability, team sports may take a very important place (Hutzler & Bar-Eli, 1993; Sporner et al., 2009). Considering the fact that there are more participants who play together, athletes with disability are motivated to communicate and make connections with others. Result of this may improve their general state. Team sports have great tradition and popularity in Serbia, especially basketball (Paunic, 2007). There are also a great number of basketball clubs in Serbia. Basketball is complex and poly-structural activity (Drinkwater, Pyne, & Mckenna, 2008; McInnes et al., 1995), therefore playing basketball has multiple infl uences on the basketball player’s body and his psycho-social characteristics. One of the most important approaches in practicing basketball is relationship between coaches and players. Coaches have to be very good psychologists (Wooden, 1998). Studies PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SERBIAN MALE WHEELCHAIR AND PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS


INTRODUCTION
In the last fi fteen years the number of disabled persons has increased in the Balkan region mainly as a result of traumatic events in this area (Organization War Veterans of Serbia, 2012).Especially, there are a certain number of young people who continue to live their lives with some gained physical disability.Therefore, more and more eff orts have been made to enhance the quality of their lives.Sport, as social phenomena, may achieve very positive infl uence on the health and social state of people with disability who practice it (Miyahara et al., 2008;Wells & Hooker, 1990).There are psycho-social benefi ts of participating in sports for people with disability (Campbell & Jones, 1995;Hutzler & Bar-Eli, 1993).People with disability who participate in sports have been shown to handle pressure and stressful situations better than those who do not exercise.They also experience less depression, confusion, tension and anger (Campbell & Jones, 1994;Paulsen, French, & Sherrill, 1990).
In sport activities of athletes with disability, team sports may take a very important place (Hutzler & Bar-Eli, 1993;Sporner et al., 2009).Considering the fact that there are more participants who play together, athletes with disability are motivated to communicate and make connections with others.Result of this may improve their general state.Team sports have great tradition and popularity in Serbia, especially basketball (Paunic, 2007).There are also a great number of basketball clubs in Serbia.Basketball is complex and poly-structural activity (Drinkwater, Pyne, & Mckenna, 2008;McInnes et al., 1995), therefore playing basketball has multiple infl uences on the basketball player's body and his psycho-social characteristics.One of the most important approaches in practicing basketball is relationship between coaches and players.Coaches have to be very good psychologists (Wooden, 1998).Studies of psychological profi les and personality of athletes is present in many sports and in basketball as well (Hoffman, Bar-Eli, & Tenenbaum, 1999;Maddi & Hess, 1992;Svoboda, 1993) The development of psychological skills of athletes with disabilities has not been suffi ciently studied (Bawden, 2006;Hanrahan, 1998).Although there are many similarities among athletes with and without disabilities, sport psychologists would benefit from an awareness of information unique to athletes with disabilities (Asken, 1991).Martin (2008) investigated performance, training, and resiliency, and thought control self-effi cacy, positive and negative aff ect with wheelchair basketball athletes and found that basketball players who were effi cacious in their ability to overcome training barriers were also confi dent in their basketball skills and effi cacious in their ability to overcome ruminating distressing thoughts while simultaneously cultivating positive thoughts.Skordilis, Gavriilidis, and Asonitou (2003) found signifi cant diff erences among male professional, amateur and wheelchair basketball athletes in sport achievement orientation and win orientation.It was the factor, through discriminated function analysis, that signifi cantly divided the athletes into three groups.Professional players achieved the highest win score, followed by amateurs and wheelchairs groups.
Wheelchair basketball has been developed lately in Serbia.There is more interest from basketball coaches, who were training only with basketball players without disability, in training wheelchair basketball players.To train more eff ectively wheelchair basketball players they have to study wheelchair basketball playersʼ psychological characteristics.
The aims of this study were: a) to investigate personality characteristics of male professional basketball players and wheelchair basketball players, b) to compare these characteristics of male professional basketball players and wheelchair basketball players (the First National League).

Participants
Participants were 25 wheelchair basketball players, from four top wheelchair basketball clubs (group 1) and 29 male professional basketball players, from four top basketball clubs (group 2).They had similar level of basketball profi ciency according to their category (the First National League).The mean age for wheelchair players was 33.5 years (SD = 8.66), and the average play ing experience was 5.60 years (SD = 1.98).According to their classifi cation seven players were classifi ed as 1, three players as 1.5, four as 2; four as 3, two as 3.5, three as 4, and two as 4.5.The mean age for professional basketball players was 26.34 years (SD = 4.48), and the average playing experience, in professional basketball, was 8.65 years (SD = 4.27).
Twenty wheelchair players had secondary education (high school), one of them is a student and four of them fi nished university.Twenty of professional players had secondary education (high school), and others (9) were students of a few diff erent universities.All players were healthy.
The protocol used in the present study received institutional approval and informed consent was obtained from each participant.Participants were recruited by contacting their coaches.Coaches were instructed to tell their players that participation was voluntary and that all the information reported in their questionnaire was confi dential.Participants completed the questionnaire individually, before practice in the evening in a quiet room.The authors of the project introduced the questionnaire to participants.

Data analysis
Standard descriptive statistics were calculatedmean (M), standard deviation (SD), minimal (Min.) and maximal (Max.)values.Signifi cance of diff erences between two groups was calculated with independent samples t-test for small samples (p = 0.05) and also, effect size coeffi cient (r) was calculated.Data processing was done in statistical program SPSS16.

RESULTS
Cattell 16PF questionnaire descriptive parameters results of professional basketball players and wheelchair basketball players are shown in TABLE 1.And then  show that wheelchair basketball player personality is sig nifi cantly diff erent of professional basketball players on traits: C -emotional stability, E -dominance, Fliveliness, M -abstractedness and N -privateness.Professional basketball players gain higher average score on factor C -emotional stability (16.38) than wheel chair basketball players whose score on that factor is 14.96.Statistically that diff erence is signifi cant, on level (p = 0.041), and between small/medium eff ect size coeffi cient (r = 0.28).On the scale E -dominance we found significant difference (p = 0.001) between two groups with the average score of 15.20 for professional basketball players and 12.16 for wheelchair basketball players, and with medium eff ect size coefficient (r = 0.44).On the scale Fliveliness professional basketball players gain a higher average score and difference in this scale is on level p = 0.010, with almost me dium eff ect size coeffi cient (r = 0.35).Wheelchair basketball players achieve better average result on the scale M -abstractedness (12.56) than professional basketball players (12.56), the diff erence is signifi cant on the level p = 0.046, but with small eff ect size coeffi cient (r = 0.25).Also on the scale N -privateness we noticed a statistically important diff erence on level p = 0.015 (with almost medium eff ect size coeffi cient r = 0.35).Professional basketball players gained distinctively higher results on this scale (10.61) than wheelchair basketball players (9.00).

DISCUSSION
In the case of professional basketball players, mean values of particular variables are almost equal when compared to the results of top Serbian athletes (Bačanac, 2001).Results of Cattell questionnaire showed partial diff erences in personality between wheelchair basketball players and professional basketball players.These diff erences were notable in the expression of certain forms of behavioral patterns within certain dimensions of personality.According to values of eff ect size coeffi cients there were mainly medium strength diff erences between certain personality dimensions.
Wheelchair basketball players were more emo tional and had tendencies towards higher impulsiveness (scale C).They exhibited less emotional stability and distress tendency, intolerance on frustration and higher impulsiveness (Campbell & Jones, 1997;Campbell & Jones, 2002).Professional basketball players performed higher emotional stability, maturity, persistence, reality toward problems.Wheelchair basketball players were secluded, more submissive, lack of self-esteem, dependence, and had certain elements of obedience and correctness (scale E).On this scale professional basketball players exhibited a stronger need for competitive domination, they are more independent, aggressive, and have more self-esteem than wheelchair basketball players.Professional players showed more readiness for cooperation, they are more energetic, carefree and impulsively lively than wheelchair basketball players less ready for teamwork and collaboration (scale F).Furthermore, results indicated that wheelchair basketball players were preoccupied with themselves and with their inner mental life (scale M).Professional basketball players are more practical, realistic, conventional and offi cious while wheelchair basketball players are more subjective, non-conventional, and imaginative with insuffi cient appreciation of logic and practical issues.Wheelchair basketball players exhibited openness, spontaneousness, and highly emotional response and had ten dencies for contact (scale N).Professional basketball players' behavior has a more analytical approach to situations, tendency to be distanct, they are more assertive still orientated to calculate in particular situations, and therefore calm.Wheelchair basketball players are more spontaneous, sharp, disposed to contacts, more natural.Results on factor N can in some way confuse and reveal unexpected assumptions considering their state.Therefore it is advisable to conduct additional research, which considers all other scales within personality profi le results or fi nd the reason for behavioral diff erences between these two groups.
Professional basketball is sport activity with numerous "confl ict" situations and intrusive sounds.That is why professional basketball requires good psychological and above all emotional stability (Maddi & Hess, 1992;Svoboda, 1993).Apart from that in the fi eld of professional basketball, strong, tough competition and competitive dominations are expected and highlighted.High levels of self esteem, independence, tendency to be calculative and calm are characteristics for professional basketball player's personality.Considering the fact that achieved result is only one criteria of success, which depends on quality, mutual collaboration among players and collaboration between players and the trainers, it is expected that professional basketball players have highlighted readiness for teamwork or collaboration.These are in concordance with fi ndings that sport achievement orientation and win orientation are the factor which signifi cantly divided professional, amateur and wheelchair basketball athletes into three groups (Skordilis et al., 2003;Skordilis, Koutsouki, Asonitou, Evans, & Jensen, 2002).
On the other hand, wheelchair basketball players have less emotional stability, tendency to get upset, lack of self-esteem and they are more secluded, self-critical and dependable.They show highlighted depression, shyness and they are more preoccupied to subjective nonconventional events.Moreover, they are not that practical, but they are more natural, spontaneous and easy in making contacts.Wheelchair basketball players, who were target group of this study, participate in the competitions that don't have an expressed result component.During competitions they are more concerned with their inner satisfaction or in other words the amount of effort and commitment exhibited in games.Pensgaard, Ro berts, and Ursin (1999) found similar results at Norwegian Paralympic and Olympic athletes.There are few clubs with these kinds of players, so most people who want to participate in this sport are welcomed.In fact, there is no fi nancial stimulation (in contrast with professional basketball) or highlighted competitive tension.These facts provide wheelchair basketball players more comfortable approach to the responsibilities, as well as more casual behavior opposite to professional basketball players.
Also, we should consider factors where diff erences between means are more than 1 -warmth (A) and reasoning (B) in these groups, in spite that diff erences are not statistically signifi cant.Wheelchair players are less warm, outgoing and kind than professional players, and exhibit lower developed ability of abstract thinking, understanding of ideas, speed of learning and problem solving.These fi ndings may have an important practical signifi cance.

CONCLUSION
Results demonstrated the existence of statistically signifi cant diff erences in the expression of certain forms of behaviour within certain dimensions of personality between male wheelchair basketball players and professional basketball players.Values of eff ect size coeffi cients show mainly medium strength of an apparent relationship between certain personality dimensions.Wheel chair basketball players are, compared with professional basketball players, more emotive; they lack of self-esteem, less ready for teamwork and collaboration; they are naive and unpretentious.Also, there are relatively great diff erences (more than 1) between means on scales warmth (A) and reasoning (B) in these groups, may be very important for coaches, despite the fact that diff erences are not statistically signifi cant.
Professional basketball players mean values of particular variables are almost equal when compared to the results of top Serbian athletes (Bačanac, 2001).
Considering these results, coaches who are involved in work with wheelchair basketball players have to adjust their methods of trainings, especially those coaches who were working with basketball players without disability.This is related particularly to coaches behavior within the set up for optimum requests to the players, or in other words sort of "pressure" he or she will apply on the players which would motivate players to make every eff ort and accomplish requests at training and on game day.On the other hand, coaches` infl uence can stimu-late eventual changes in some of the above mentioned characteristics of wheelchair basketball players in more desirable course.

TABLE 1
Means and standard deviations of 16 personal factors for both groups

TABLE 2
Results of t-test between wheelchair basketball players and professional basketball players