5. Influence of dark triad on sports performance of athletes in Prince Abubakar Audu University Anyigba Kogi State

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the influence of dark triad on sports performance of athletes in Prince Abubakar Audu University Anyigba. The survey research design was used for the conduct of this study. The population of the study comprised of 368 registered athletes from the just concluded inter faculty competition, 2024. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 5 faculties out of the 8 faculties in PAAU. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 92 respondents who are basketball, football and volleyball players.  A self-constructed questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The questionnaire was given to three (3) research personnel in the Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education for any necessary correction after which the questionnaire was administered to the respondents during their usual game time. Descriptive statistic of frequency and percentage were used to analyse the demographic data while frequency, mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that there is a prevalence of dark triad among athletes in PAAU and that dark triad has a positive influence on the sports performance of athletes in PAAU. It can be concluded that despite the fact that dark triad tend to give rise to antisocial behaviour, it still has a great influence on performance outcome of PAAU athletes. It is recommended that coaches should know how to handle dark triad traits among athletes in such a way that will help them gain an edge in winning a competition and that athletes should always channel their personality traits towards winning a competition and achieving success in sports, not just using it to cause infringements on the opponents