| The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast the involvement profiles of individual and team sport athletes. Using social cognitive and social identity theories, the study explored the cognitive and affective processing traits of participant athletes, where cognitive processing was predicted to be higher for athletes competing in a team environment. Ultradistance runners were used as the individual sport study group, while rally auto racing participants were introduced as team sport athletes. This is a fruitful area for research as little academic research exists on interactive team relationships in motorsport. Zaichkowsky's 10-item unidimensional involvement scale, and Laurent and Kapferer's 15-item multidimensional scale, were used for involvement measures. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the unidimensional scale did not fit the single factor solution for either respondent group, but did hold construct validity when factored into cognitive and affective dimensions. The multidimensional scale retained its factor loadings for both individual and team sport data sets. The multidimensional scale proved to be a significant predictor of individual ultrarunning sport intent to participate, and rally team sport behavioral intent. The unidimensional scale held a statistically significant relationship to rally team sport intent to participate and individual ultrarunning behavioral intent. Contrary to the hypotheses tested, cognition was higher for individual sport athletes over team sport athletes in unidimensional involvement scale data, and team sport athletes held a lower group identification score than individual sport athletes. However, in multidimensional scale testing, team athletes exhibited a lower affective response than individual sport athletes as predicted. |
