New Approaches to Identity in Sport

Welcome to this Special Issue of Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, which offers new theoretical, methodological and applied considerations on what we (the editors) regard as the important topic of identity in sport. The aim of the special issue is to establish how new theoretical approaches to identity can generate better understanding of the identities of athletes and sport psychology practitioners, and provides sport psychologists with considerations and applications that will make a difference to the way they practice. The special issue contextualizes identity development in different cultural locations and populations, and engages a range of theoretical perspectives to challenge our field to open up more diverse understanding and ways of studying identity in sport.

The concept of identity has attracted growing interest in the sport psychology community from the 1990s onwards. Brewer, Van Raalte, and Linder's work was foundational in introducing the concept, which they defined as “the degree to which an individual identifies with the athlete role” (Brewer et al., 1993, p. 237). Their Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS) provided a research tool for subsequent research for the field that, at the time, predominantly embraced quantitative methodology (Culver et al., 2003). It was proposed that strong athletic identity could have certain benefits, such as sport commitment and motivation, but that strong and exclusive athletic identity could be detrimental to athlete well-being at times of injury, de-selection, and career termination. Subsequent research has provided considerable evidence to support these assertions (Brewer & Petitpas, 2017), and research using AIMS continues to form an important subset of identity studies in sport psychology today.

Qualitative studies embracing alternative theoretical underpinnings to Brewer et al’s work emerged in the 1990s, but it was mainly in the last two decades that theory and research on identity in sport started to diversify and develop new approaches (see Ronkainen et al., 2016, for a review). These new approaches have served to challenge the assumption that identity is a stable concept with a fixed meaning, and have revealed a fluidity and context-specificity in how people develop identities in sport. This has required sport psychology researchers to use more diverse methodologies to capture individuals' lived experiences more closely.

One important development contributing to this trend was the emergence of cultural sport psychology (CSP; Champ et al., 2020; Ryba et al., 2010; Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009), which centralized questions of identity in both sport participants and researchers. CSP scholars considered identity as a complex, evolving, and fluid cultural construction that was best explored using qualitative methodologies. A particular pathway stemming from CSP scholarship was the focus on intersectional identities (Schinke et al., 2019; Stambulova & Ryba, 2020), which focused on understanding how athletic identities overlap with other identities, such as those related to gender, race, or religion. Moreover, narrative research, which similarly tends to highlight identity-related issues, started to grow in popularity in sport psychology. The conceptualization of identity as a culturally shaped story that an individual tells about who they are has gained traction, with Douglas and Carless (2006) work on cultural narrative types providing a basis for much of the narrative scholarship on athletic identities that have followed (see Coker-Cranney et al., 2020).

Contemporary research on identity in sport has continued to expand, both methodologically and in scope. Some scholars have explored “alternative” methods, such as mandala drawings (Blodgett et al., 2017), documentaries (McGannon et al., 2020), and visual storytelling (Ronkainen & Ryba, 2020) to understand how sporting identities gain meaning and are negotiated in various contexts. Research into potential tensions in balancing multiple identities is gaining prominence, reflecting the whole-person perspective that informs much of sport psychology theory and practice.

The diversity of foci, methods, and theories researchers are using to study new approaches to identity has benefits for sport psychology practitioners. These perspectives allow for greater recognition in the literature that identity is fluid, and individuals have the freedom, within limits, to create their identities (Ronkainen et al., 2016). The recognition that people construct their identities echoes the teachings of many religions and philosophical movements, such as Buddhism and existentialism (Giles, 1993; Van Deurzen, 2009), both of which appear in sport psychology literature (Ronkainen & Nesti, 2017; Williams & Andersen, 2012).

To illustrate, the existential thinker Sartre (2007) wrote, “existence precedes essence” (p. 22). He further explained that to mean that when “man first exists: he materializes in the world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself” (p. 22). Sartre argued that we choose ourselves through our actions. Identity is not confined to our thoughts, but reveals itself to others and us by our behavior. We become who we are through our engagement in the world and with other people. Similar to other existential thinkers, however, Sartre acknowledges that our freedom to choose ourselves resides within the limits of existence. We live in a forming, swirling ocean of relationships, or within cultures that provide us with some narrative resources, but not others, thereby constraining the identities we can write.

One benefit for practitioners from acknowledging that identity is fluid is the realization that clients have the agency, to a greater or lesser extent, to choose their identities, to change, and to grow. Sartre called this freedom the first principle of existentialism. Surely, it is also the first principle of applied sport psychology. If practitioners do not think athletes, exercise participants, or clients can change, then there seems little to no basis for the profession. The alternative belief seems opposed to the assertion that practitioners can help clients. If athletes and exercise participants cannot change, if they cannot grow, if they cannot become the person they desire, to some degree, then why assist their search for fool’s gold?

The constrained freedom to fashion identity exists not only for athletes, however, but also for practitioners. Individuation is a central theme in practitioner development (McEwan et al., 2019; Tod et al., 2011). Practitioners can choose to become the consultants they believe can help their clients. Over time, sport psychologists develop the personal attributes, and select the approaches, methods, theories, and environments, allowing them to assist clients and gain satisfaction from their careers (Rønnestad & Skovholt, 2013). As educators and researchers wishing to help practitioners, we (the editors of this special issue) view the recent moves to examine practitioner identity as a positive step in the discipline. As evidenced in the contributions of this special issue (see Andersen, 2020; Tod et al., 2020; Wagstaff & Quartiroli, 2020) identity-related research is expanding to involve a focus on practitioners’ identities, and how these identities shape individual practice philosophy, service delivery and the profession of sport psychology itself.