Publication Date

1983

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Social Work

Department

School for Social Work

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether marathon runners exhibit a higher degree of obsessive compulsive personality traits than do recreational runners. Because competing in a marathon requires a great amount of energy and discipline, incidences of traits such as perseverance, rigidity, orderliness and drive were examined in both male and female marathon and recreational runners. To carry ·out this investigation, semi-structured interviews regarding running history were conducted with two non-probability sample groups of 12 marathon and 12 recreational runners; each group consisted of seven men and five women. In addition~ each runner completed a true/ false test which records obsessive, oral, and hysteric personality patterns. Data from both the interviews and the personality tests were coded, and a statistical analysis was used to examine the findings for significant relationships. The major findings were that both the marathon and the recreational runners showed high frequencies of obsessive compulsive traits. There were only two statistically significant differences between the two groups: 1) male runners exhibited a significantly higher frequency of obsessive compulsive traits than did fe male runners, and 2) marathoners showed significantly greater amounts of perseverance than recreational runners did. Although female marathoners exhibited higher percentages of obsessive compulsive traits -than did female recreational runners, this was not found to be statistically significant. It may be that all runners tend to be obsessive compulsive and that men generally exhibit more obsessive compulsive traits than do women.

Comments

Bibliography: leaves 87-88

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