The concept of mental toughness: tests of dimensionality, nomological network, and traitness

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Author
Gucciardi, Daniel
Hanton, Sheldon
Gordon, Sandy
Mallett, Clifford J.
Temby, Philip
Date
2015Type
Article
Publisher
Wiley Periodicals, Inc
ISSN
0022-3506
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Mental toughness has received increased scholarly attention in recent years, yet conceptual issues related to its (a) dimensionality, (b) nomological network, and (c) traitness remain unresolved. The series of studies reported in this article were designed to examine these three substantive issues across several achievement contexts, including sport, education, military, and the workplace. Five studies were conducted to examine these research aims—Study 1: N = 30; Study 2: calibration sample (n = 418), tertiary students (n = 500), athletes (n = 427), and employees (n = 550); Study 3: N = 497 employees; Study 4: N = 203 tertiary students; Study 5: N = 115 army candidates. Collectively, the results of these studies revealed that mental toughness may be best conceptualized as a unidimensional rather than a multidimensional concept; plays an important role in performance, goal progress, and thriving despite stress; and can vary and have enduring properties across situations and time. This series of studies provides a foundation for further basic and applied research of mental toughness across various achievement contexts.
Journal/conference proceeding
Journal of Personality
Citation
Gucciardi, D. F., Hanton, S., Gordon, S., Mallett, C. J. and Temby, P. (2015) 'The concept of mental toughness: tests of dimensionality, nomological network, and traitness', Journal of Personality, 83 (1), pp.26–44
Description
This article was published in Journal of Personality on 27 February 2014 (online), available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12079
The author's post-print is available in this repository from 27 February 2016
Rights
This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Sponsorship
This research was funded in part by a University of Queensland Early Career Researcher Grant and Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to Daniel F. Gucciardi.
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