Inside the minds of football athletes: Examination of age, expertise, and gender disparities in personality traits.

Personality research holds a longstanding position in scientific exploration. Yet, there remains a significant gap in the study of personality characteristics of football athletes and their interaction with performance. Utilizing the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality we assessed personality traits of 2085 males and females. First, differences between football players and two comparison samples of students and inactives were analysed. Subsequently, a series of analyses examined variations within the football player group, considering expertise, age, and gender. Football players, in contrast to both comparison samples, exhibited distinct expressions of the FFM traits (e.g. lower neuroticism and openness levels, higher conscientiousness and extraversion levels). When focusing on football players as a distinct sample, several differences concerning expertise (performance levels), gender, and age emerged. Generally, greater expertise was linked to lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness. Male adult players further displayed higher agreeableness compared to male youth players, and females generally exhibited higher levels of neuroticism and agreeableness than males. These findings provide new scientific and practical insights regarding the special personality characteristics of football players, including expertise-, age-, and gender-related differences at the trait level.