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Olympics 2024: how dark personality traits may affect the relationship between coaches and athletes who win gold this summer

    The coach-athlete relationship is key to achieving greatness in elite sports. And at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the margins between success and failure will be tiny.

    Our new research offers insights on how the dark triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy), which tend to be more prevalent among athletes, might damage the relationship between coach and athlete, affecting their performance.

    Studies have shown that athletes with a stronger relationship with their coach perform better. Elite athletes tend to be more satisfied with their own performance when they have a good relationship with their coach, too. They also report higher levels of intrinsic motivation for sport, where they are motivated by enjoyment and excitement. This kind of motivation is associated with increased persistence and better wellbeing.

    Coaches and athletes also report higher personal wellbeing when their relationship is better.

    Personality traits play a powerful role in the coach-athlete relationship. Coaches and athletes are more committed to each other when they are disciplined, reliable and high in conscientiousness.

    A 2014 study of Chinese coach-athlete relationships found that when coaches and athletes had sociable, talkative and outgoing personality traits, it benefited their relationship. Being irritable, self-conscious or anxious had a negative effect.

    Our research published in 2022 found that elite swimmers and their coaches could identify the role that their own, and their partner’s personality traits played in their relationship. We found actual personality traits did not seem to matter as much as an awareness of how the coach’s personality affected the relationship.

    In some partnerships, the athletes valued similarities in their personalities, while others felt that their differences helped “balance each other”.

    The study also found that both the coach and athlete understood that the interpersonal relationship was important for performance.

    We’ve recently expanded our research to explore the role of dark triad personality traits in the coach-athlete relationship. These traits are often thought of negatively due to their association with being ruthless (narcissism), manipulative (Machiavellianism) or lacking empathy (psychopathy).

    Athletes report higher levels of these traits than non athletes. Studies that include both athlete and coach samples tend to find they have broadly similar levels of dark triad traits.

    Athletes competing in individual sports are more likely to report dark triad traits than those in team sports. However, some studies seem to show dark triad traits may affect performance even for team sports professionals. For instance, a 2022 UK study found basketball players high in the dark triad traits performed better in a free-throw task than those with lower levels.

    Our new study examined how levels of these traits in both coaches and their athletes were linked to the quality of their relationship. When coaches had higher narcissism, they reported less cooperative behaviour towards their athlete. In other words, they may have been less responsive to the needs of their athlete.

    The relationship was better for athletes and coaches when they had different levels of narcissism – supporting the adage that “opposites attract”. Athlete-coach pairs with mismatched narcissism felt closer to each other, with higher levels of trust.
    Athletes high in psychopathy – associated with being ruthless – were less committed to and had less respect for their coach. Coaches high in this trait had lower levels of closeness, commitment and leadership.

    Machiavellianism was also linked with relationship quality. Coaches high in this trait – associated with manipulating and exploiting others – reported less cooperative behaviour in their relationship. In addition, athletes with high levels of Machiavellianism were less committed, felt more distant and were less willing to do their best for their coach.

    Our study shows that while dark triad traits may lead to higher performance in elite sports, they may undermine the quality of the relationship between coach and athlete.

    We only looked at this in a snapshot of time. It may be that over time the negative aspects of these traits impede the relationships, which lead to long-term performance. Within the study, coaches and athletes reported broadly similar levels of the dark triad traits to each other.

Building strong relationships

    Our research adds to the understanding of how coaches and athletes can build strong relationships to aid their performance. However, it isn’t our view that coaches and athletes with high levels of dark triad traits cannot have relationships that satisfy their needs and lead to high performance.

    But we would offer a couple of recommendations.

    First, the personality traits of both coach and athlete should be considered at the beginning of the relationship. For example, pairing an athlete high in narcissism to a coach with much lower levels of this trait could lead to a positive relationship. They should also seek the support of a sport psychologist, to help coaches and athletes understand who their partner is and how to get the best out of them.

    When you’re watching the Olympics this summer remember there is a team behind the new records and the crushing defeats. As the dark triad research shows, people’s relationships with their team can have deep power over their performance.

Disponível em: https://theconversation.com/olympics-2024-how-dark personality-traits-may-affect-the-relationship-between-coaches-and-ath letes-who-win-gold-this-summer-234295.

Read the text to answer question.

     When United States (US) Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy pushed for a tobacco-style warning on social media, he called the mental health crisis in young people an emergency that demanded action without waiting for “perfect information.”

     Even among experts, questions remain about the exact role that social media plays in the mental health of children and teens. Authors of a comprehensive new review of research on the topic say there’s still key information missing to know whether prevention programs and interventions will work.

     In the study, published recently in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers found an overall link between anxiety and depression in adolescents and the time spent on social media platforms, as well as a link between the types of activities and content they were interacting with. However, the level of impact varied enough to suggest that the findings shouldn’t be generalized to the population as a whole. “In a world increasingly saturated by digital technology, we cannot afford to design prevention programs, interventions, and regulations without knowing that they work for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable,” wrote the study authors.

    The National Academies committee specifically recommend against a social media ban. Despite potential harms — such as unhealthy social comparisons and distracting from other important healthy behaviors such as sleep, exercise and studying — social media can also benefit young people by helping to foster connection with friends and family, and with online support communities.

(Deidre McPhillips. https://edition.cnn.com, 24.06.2024. Adapted.)

A questão está relacionada ao texto abaixo.

    The first time I saw an encaustic painting, I 
was mesmerized by its beautiful surface, 
translucency, and incredible texture which you 
could appreciate for hours. Encaustics are like 
[5] no other form of painting, in that there are 
endless techniques and fleeting seconds before 
your medium solidifies. It is a medium where 
you have to trust your instincts and paint in the 
moment. You have to take leaps of faith. In the 
[10] beginning there are many frustrations, but over 
time you learn how to work with the beautiful 
accidents which incur.

     Encaustic painting is one of the oldest forms of 
painting, and stems from the word Enkaustikos, 
[15] which means “to burn in”. It originated in 
Ancient Greece three thousand years ago when 
ancient ship builders would use a combination 
of wax and resin to seal and waterproof their 
hulls. Pigments were then added to the medium 
[20] and led to the decoration of warships. Most 
likely the most famous encaustic paintings of all 
time are the Fayum mummy funeral portraits 
from the late 1st century BCE or the early 2nd 
century CE onwards. As tradition, funeral 
[25] portraits were placed over a person’s mummy 
as a memorial.  Many of these mummies have 
survived to present day, and the portraits 
maintain their bright and vivid colors because 
the pigments remain suspended in the wax 
[30] medium; thereby retaining their vibrance.

     After the decline of the Roman Empire, 
encaustic painting fell by the wayside as the 
country faced instability and economic turmoil. 
At this time, encaustic was largely replaced by 
[35] tempera, which was easier to work with and 
more economical. Some painting continued as 
late as the 7th century, but encaustics soon 
became a lost art. Later in the 19th century 
mural painters in northern climates 
[40] experimented with encaustics to battle 
problems of dampness in mural paintings, but 
success was limited. Leonardo da Vinci 
experimented with using encaustics in his work, 
but was not successful. Other European artists 
[45] including Vincent van Gogh and Julius Schnorr 
von Carolsfeld used encaustics in their oil 
paintings to separate layers of paint with 
translucent layers. 

     Wax has many qualities that last the test of 
[50] time, and encaustic may be the most durable

form of painting. Beeswax is moisture resistant, 
it is a natural adhesive, it does not attract 
insects, and it resists mildew. Solvents and oils 
can darken or yellow over time, but beeswax 
[55] does not change color at all.   

     As with oil paint, you should only paint with

encaustics in a well-ventilated studio

environment, using either an industrial

ventilating system, or a fan near your work

[60] surface to blow air away …….. you in

combination with open windows. A safe working

range for encaustic is …….. 150–175ºF.

Beeswax has a flash point of …….. 470ºF, but at

no point should you allow the wax to get close 
[65] to this temperature. If your wax begins to 
smoke at any point, turn …….. the heat. Keep a 
fire extinguisher handy in your studio because 
water does not extinguish wax which is 
inflamed. If you use tools such as a griddle with 
[70] encaustic painting, do not later use them for 
food preparation. Rather, dedicate them solely 
to work with encaustic.

Adapted from: MARGELL, J. Encaustic Art. 7. ed. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Parkstone International, 2013.

A questão está relacionada ao texto abaixo.

    The first time I saw an encaustic painting, I 
was mesmerized by its beautiful surface, 
translucency, and incredible texture which you 
could appreciate for hours. Encaustics are like 
[5] no other form of painting, in that there are 
endless techniques and fleeting seconds before 
your medium solidifies. It is a medium where 
you have to trust your instincts and paint in the 
moment. You have to take leaps of faith. In the 
[10] beginning there are many frustrations, but over 
time you learn how to work with the beautiful 
accidents which incur.

     Encaustic painting is one of the oldest forms of 
painting, and stems from the word Enkaustikos, 
[15] which means “to burn in”. It originated in 
Ancient Greece three thousand years ago when 
ancient ship builders would use a combination 
of wax and resin to seal and waterproof their 
hulls. Pigments were then added to the medium 
[20] and led to the decoration of warships. Most 
likely the most famous encaustic paintings of all 
time are the Fayum mummy funeral portraits 
from the late 1st century BCE or the early 2nd 
century CE onwards. As tradition, funeral 
[25] portraits were placed over a person’s mummy 
as a memorial.  Many of these mummies have 
survived to present day, and the portraits 
maintain their bright and vivid colors because 
the pigments remain suspended in the wax 
[30] medium; thereby retaining their vibrance.

     After the decline of the Roman Empire, 
encaustic painting fell by the wayside as the 
country faced instability and economic turmoil. 
At this time, encaustic was largely replaced by 
[35] tempera, which was easier to work with and 
more economical. Some painting continued as 
late as the 7th century, but encaustics soon 
became a lost art. Later in the 19th century 
mural painters in northern climates 
[40] experimented with encaustics to battle 
problems of dampness in mural paintings, but 
success was limited. Leonardo da Vinci 
experimented with using encaustics in his work, 
but was not successful. Other European artists 
[45] including Vincent van Gogh and Julius Schnorr 
von Carolsfeld used encaustics in their oil 
paintings to separate layers of paint with 
translucent layers. 

     Wax has many qualities that last the test of 
[50] time, and encaustic may be the most durable

form of painting. Beeswax is moisture resistant, 
it is a natural adhesive, it does not attract 
insects, and it resists mildew. Solvents and oils 
can darken or yellow over time, but beeswax 
[55] does not change color at all.   

     As with oil paint, you should only paint with

encaustics in a well-ventilated studio

environment, using either an industrial

ventilating system, or a fan near your work

[60] surface to blow air away …….. you in

combination with open windows. A safe working

range for encaustic is …….. 150–175ºF.

Beeswax has a flash point of …….. 470ºF, but at

no point should you allow the wax to get close 
[65] to this temperature. If your wax begins to 
smoke at any point, turn …….. the heat. Keep a 
fire extinguisher handy in your studio because 
water does not extinguish wax which is 
inflamed. If you use tools such as a griddle with 
[70] encaustic painting, do not later use them for 
food preparation. Rather, dedicate them solely 
to work with encaustic.

Adapted from: MARGELL, J. Encaustic Art. 7. ed. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Parkstone International, 2013.

As questão está relacionada ao texto abaixo.

    There are as many ways of being blind as there

are of being tall, or sick, or hot. But the popular 
view has always conceived …….. blindness as a

totality. The blind bards wandering the

[5] countrysides of ancient Japan, China, or Europe, 
the blind housed in asylums in the Middle Ages, 
all the pupils in all the schools for the blind from 
the Enlightenment onward, blind beggars and

lawyers, war veterans and toddlers - in the eyes

[10] of history, as well as those of most of their 
contemporaries, they all saw nothing. Modern 
dictionaries still subscribe to this sense: 
blindness is the antonym of vision, and connotes 
a destitution of sight. What else could it mean?

[15]    Despite the poetic impulse to equate blindness

…….. darkness, it's rarely experienced as a black

veil draped over the world. Only around 15 
percent of blind people have no light perception 
whatsoever. Most see something, even if it isn't 
[20] very useful, by sighted standards: a blurry view 
of their periphery, with nothing in the middle, or 
the inverse - the world seen through a 

buttonhole. For some, scenes come through in a 
dim haze; for others, light produces a shower of 
[25] excruciatingly bright needles. Even those with no 
light perception at all have little use for the 
popular image of blindness as darkness: the 
brain cut off from visual stimulus can still 

produce washes of brilliant color and shape. One 
[30] blind man, whose optic nerve - the connection 
between the eyes and the brain - had been 
severed, described seeing a continuously 
swirling (and distracting) "visual tinnitus." The 
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, decades 
[35] …….. his blindness, still saw color, which

sometimes disturbed him: "I, who was 
accustomed to sleeping in total darkness," he 
said, “was bothered for a long time at having to 
sleep in this world of mist, in the greenish or 
[40] bluish mist, vaguely luminous, which is the world 
of the blind. I wanted to lie down in darkness”.

    The arrival or encroachment of blindness gives

rise to a similarly dazzling range of experiences, 
an efflorescence of blind varietals. There are 
[45] those born blind, with no visual memories, 
whose brains – including the visual cortices – 
develop using four (or fewer) senses to construct 
their view of the world. Those who become blind 
in early childhood often retain visual memories 
[50] that can contribute to an intuitive understanding 
of visual concepts. The late-blinded may have 
the most cognitive work to do, forced to relearn 
basic skills like orientation and information – 
gathering through new senses, long after their 

[55] brains' developmental plasticity has hardened. 
Some late-blinded adults consciously struggle to 
preserve their storehouses of mental images, 
like art conservators touching up old and fading 
masterpieces. 

[60]    People are blinded by their spouses or strangers,

by acts of war or sports injuries, by industrial

accidents and bad decisions, malnutrition and

infection, genetic inheritances and spontaneous

mutations. It's disingenuous to argue that

[65] blindness doesn't have a transformative impact

...….. a person's life, but in every case, blindness

is only part of the story. The life of a blind person

is never fully (or even predominantly) defined by

their blindness».

Extraído de: LELAND, A. The Country of the Blind: A memoir at the end of sight. New York: Penguin, 2023.

As questão está relacionada ao texto abaixo.

    There are as many ways of being blind as there

are of being tall, or sick, or hot. But the popular 
view has always conceived …….. blindness as a

totality. The blind bards wandering the

[5] countrysides of ancient Japan, China, or Europe, 
the blind housed in asylums in the Middle Ages, 
all the pupils in all the schools for the blind from 
the Enlightenment onward, blind beggars and

lawyers, war veterans and toddlers - in the eyes

[10] of history, as well as those of most of their 
contemporaries, they all saw nothing. Modern 
dictionaries still subscribe to this sense: 
blindness is the antonym of vision, and connotes 
a destitution of sight. What else could it mean?

[15]    Despite the poetic impulse to equate blindness

…….. darkness, it's rarely experienced as a black

veil draped over the world. Only around 15 
percent of blind people have no light perception 
whatsoever. Most see something, even if it isn't 
[20] very useful, by sighted standards: a blurry view 
of their periphery, with nothing in the middle, or 
the inverse - the world seen through a 

buttonhole. For some, scenes come through in a 
dim haze; for others, light produces a shower of 
[25] excruciatingly bright needles. Even those with no 
light perception at all have little use for the 
popular image of blindness as darkness: the 
brain cut off from visual stimulus can still 

produce washes of brilliant color and shape. One 
[30] blind man, whose optic nerve - the connection 
between the eyes and the brain - had been 
severed, described seeing a continuously 
swirling (and distracting) "visual tinnitus." The 
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, decades 
[35] …….. his blindness, still saw color, which

sometimes disturbed him: "I, who was 
accustomed to sleeping in total darkness," he 
said, “was bothered for a long time at having to 
sleep in this world of mist, in the greenish or 
[40] bluish mist, vaguely luminous, which is the world 
of the blind. I wanted to lie down in darkness”.

    The arrival or encroachment of blindness gives

rise to a similarly dazzling range of experiences, 
an efflorescence of blind varietals. There are 
[45] those born blind, with no visual memories, 
whose brains – including the visual cortices – 
develop using four (or fewer) senses to construct 
their view of the world. Those who become blind 
in early childhood often retain visual memories 
[50] that can contribute to an intuitive understanding 
of visual concepts. The late-blinded may have 
the most cognitive work to do, forced to relearn 
basic skills like orientation and information – 
gathering through new senses, long after their 

[55] brains' developmental plasticity has hardened. 
Some late-blinded adults consciously struggle to 
preserve their storehouses of mental images, 
like art conservators touching up old and fading 
masterpieces. 

[60]    People are blinded by their spouses or strangers,

by acts of war or sports injuries, by industrial

accidents and bad decisions, malnutrition and

infection, genetic inheritances and spontaneous

mutations. It's disingenuous to argue that

[65] blindness doesn't have a transformative impact

...….. a person's life, but in every case, blindness

is only part of the story. The life of a blind person

is never fully (or even predominantly) defined by

their blindness».

Extraído de: LELAND, A. The Country of the Blind: A memoir at the end of sight. New York: Penguin, 2023.