The self-perception of athletes with disability

Psychological studies show that people often see those with disabilities in a stereotyped way. Athletes with disabilities are most often seen as “poor” or “superheroes”. Apart from their exposure to prejudice and stereotyped social perception, people with disabilities, more often than people without disabilities, face inefficiency in the field of sport. This can result in sport being a double-edged sword, which can improve or impair one’s self-image. The aim of this study was to determine how athletes with disabilities see themselves: what is their real self-perception? It was presumed that there are significant differences in terms of the age or gender of the participants. A self-perception inventory was used as an instrument, composed of thirty attributes of personality estimated on a four degree scale. 19 athletes with disabilities aged between 14 and 60 participated in this study. Eight of the participants were younger than 26 years, and 11 were older; there were14 males and 5 females. The results showed statistically significant differences in self-perception among the participants of different ages or gender. Attributes that dominated among the athletes with disabilities were positive self-perception and a positive self-image (for example, being self-confident, cheerful, relaxed, ambitious, decent). Although the study involved a relatively small number of participants and did not directly consider the correlation between self-perception and sports, the results correspond with the general trend of psychological studies confirming the positive effect of sports activities on the self-concept of people with disabilities.


INTRODUCTION
Whether we are talking about a "disabled person" or "invalid", it is not only a terminological but also a psychological issue. A person becomes an invalid not in the moment when one is diagnosed with a certain type of disability, but when one's uniqueness of psycho-physical functions becomes built into one's self-perception as the main backbone of one's identity (Mladenović, 2015). There are three discourses in the self-description of athletes with disabilities in the literature (Smith, 2015). The first is dominated by sports identity. In this discourse, the athletes describe themselves only in terms of a self-description related to their role in the sport. In the self-description there are only words that describe the person as an athlete, not as a man or a woman, or a person of a certain age, but only as an athlete who practices hard and does everything necessary to achieve success in a sport. It is a self-description of a champion. The second discourse refers to identity that in the foreground contains the fact that the person is first an athlete and then a person with disability. The third discourse involves a self-description which puts the individual's disability ahead of the other characteristics (athletes, people). Such a classification of identity corresponds with the social perception by means of which people see athletes with disabilities as "superheroes" or "poor" (Martin, 2002;. The impression that people establish about others has been the focus of psychological studies for over fifty years and is an important social interaction determinant in sport . Social perception is often labeled by stereotypical observation. The social environment is too extensive, too complex and too variable to be studied in its entirety (Stewart, Powell, & Chetwynd,1979). In order for a person to maintain a balanced image of him/her self and the world, in a situation where information is often 44 incomplete, ambiguous and inconsistent, simplified, stereotyped perception occurs (Heider, 1958;, Havelka, 1992. Based on a single characteristic, for example, physical disability, the person is attributed a number of other characteristics. Therefore one notable feature then becomes the 'label' for the classification of people in a particular category. Prejudice appears when people agree with a label, the consequences of which are certain emotions and behaviors toward the stigmatized persons. People who are labeled as "different", in everyday life very often encounter restrictions that are not set by their specificities, but by the social environment that treats this uniqueness by means of prejudice Ostman & Kjellin, 2002). For example, a person with physical disabilities naturally encounters physical movement barriers and space maladjustment. This may be one reason why a person in a wheelchair, for instance, finds it harder to geta job, although in fact it is those around this individual who make a much bigger barrier of his or her inclusion into everyday life. As a result of a lack of information about a disability or without any real knowledge of the person, people are apt to label individuals with disabilities and developmental disorders as less competent, unreliable, or lacking independence in their job etc. (Shapiro, 1993).
Although the attitude toward athletes with disabilities has substantially changed over the decades at the organizational level (Kasum, Mladenović, 2015). The way other people perceive athletes with disabilities can greatly affect their self-perception. Even Mead (1934) emphasized the importance of social interaction for the development of self-perception, and William James (1890) pointed out the importance of the self-concept and so-called physical-self. During the developmental period, parents' evaluations are of particular importance. Children who show greater motor skills in very early childhood are often perceived and evaluated by their parents as skillful and advanced, while those who have lesser motor skills, regardless of whether this is related to some kind of disability or not, can cause parents to ascribe their child attributes such as "clumsy" and incompetent for sporting activities.
The observation of motor skills is important for the development of self-perception even in the preschool years. Children aged three to four build a picture of themselves based on what they can do, i.e. based on skills that include fine motor skills. In the period between five and six years old, self-image is more based on interpersonal relationships, i.e. on the question "Who am I in relation to others?" while self-esteem is based on their degree of independence and ability to care for themselves (Perić & Tišma, 2014). Similar questions of self-effectiveness and self-competence, as well as the reconsideration of self-value and position in the social environment are actualized in adolescence.
For children engaged in sporting activities, important persons who provide information for building their self-image are not only parents, but also other referent adults: a teacher of physical education at school, or a sport coach. The self-perception of one's own body and motor competence is an important foundation in establishing a child's overall self-esteem. The feedback that the child receives from other important persons in the context of the sport situation is very easy to generalize into entire personal competence and it is implanted into the child's self-esteem. A child, who due to certain difficulties in development shows inefficiency in response to environmental stimuli, is likely to be exposed to a negative assessment of his or her own competence. As disability in the developmental period has pervasive or relatively pervasive character, continuously facing personal ineffectiveness and incompetence eventually leads to the construction of a child's self-attributeas "poor". This also leads to lack of self-esteem and causes withdrawal from activities and social interactions (Martin, 2010;Mladenović, 2015).
With early adolescence, feedback from adults losesits significance, and greater importance is placed on peer evaluation. In the sport context, the period of early adolescence is the time when young people show a decided lack of motivation for sport activities (Mladenović & Marjanović, 2011). Feedback related to efficiency in sport is a ruthless indicator of transient motor "clumsiness" among young people without developmental disorders, which can cause a transient lack of motivation or even result in their giving up sport. In the case of young people with disabilities and developmental disorders, the sports context can also be another reminder of their own incompetence. Studies show that children with motor disabilities experience failure in the context of sports 45 more often than children without disabilities (Smyth & Anderson, 2000).
The sports field is "fruitful ground" for the development of a positive self-perception and feelings of competence, regardless of whether a person has a disability or not. In fact, there are many studies that show that just through sports, children and adults can improve their self-esteem, develop a positive attitude towards them selves and strengthen the feeling of competence and internal locus of control Deci, 1996;Mladenović, 2010a).
When comparing persons with disabilities who are continuously engaged in physical activities and various sports with people with disabilities who do not take part in sports activities, studies confirm that participation in sports activities significantly increases self-esteem and has a positive effect on the overall self-perception of people with disabilities ( The aim of this study was to determine difference between the real self-perception of younger and older people with disabilities who are actively or recreationally engaged in sports activities. Do they see themselves as superheroes or poor? Since studies show that sport and physical activity positively affects the general self-identification and self-concept, it was assumed that the self-perception was marked by positive attributes. Due to the greater social impact of others in adolescence, it was assumed that with younger participants self-perception was more marked by negative attributes than with older participants (Martin & Smith, 2002;Martin, 2006;. According to some studies of self-perception there are differences in self-perception between men and women (Mladenović, 2007), therefore it may be suggested that differences toward gander can be expected too.

METHOD Participants
The study included 19 participants who were athletes with disabilities, 14 males and 5 females, ages from 14 to 60. The participants were divided into two groups according to their age. One group consisted of participants aged from 14 to 26 (N = 8), and in the other group were those aged from 27 to 60 years (N = 11). They all participated voluntarily in this research.
The participants were athletes with physical disabilities engaged in sporting activities professionally or recreationally. Half of the participants were younger, and half were older than 27 years. The younger participants were active athletes, while the older participants continued to be engaged in sports recreationally after the end of an active sports career. The largest group of participants was made up of those engaged in athletics (N = 9), while the other participants were engaged in different sports (swimming, volleyball, basketball). All participants were members of the Sports Association for Persons with Disabilities from Belgrade, Serbia. They personally agreed to take part in the study, or in the case of minors, with their parents' agreement. The participants were assured that the data they provided about themselves would be anonymous and would be used exclusively for research purposes only.

Instruments
A self-perception inventory was used in the study that was originally designed for the analysis of self-perception and motivation towards work (Mladenović, 2007). It contained thirty personality traits grouped into six categories (physical characteristics, emotional characteristics, abilities, relations with others, and relationship to oneself, attitude to work and commitments). In the category of physical characteristics there was only one feature (slow), in the category of abilities there were five characteristics, while in each of the other categories there were six personality features. The characteristics were also divided into desirable (positive) and undesirable (negative) attributes. In the category of positive attributes there were eighteen traits (warm, bright, relaxed, self-critical, gifted, confident, cheerful, modest, polite, ambitious, systematic, intelligent, open, practical, reliable, correct, resourceful, self-confident), while in the category of negative attributes there are twelve traits (quarrelsome, gives up easily, weak, slow, envious, self-centered, fearful, irresponsible, anxious, insecure, impulsive, stupid). The participants' task was to assess on a four-point scale (1-not at all; 2-a little, 3-quite a lot, 4-very much) which of these characteristics he or she really had.

Data analysis
The data were analyzed by the SPSS statistical program, version 22 nd . The descriptive statistics and t-test for independent samples was applied.

RESULTS
An examination of the differences in the self-perception of athletes with disabilities in relation to their age shows that there are statistically significant differences between participants age from 14 to 26 (N 1 =8) and participants age from 27 to 60 (N 2 =11) in terms of characteristic "resourceful". The results are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Participants older than 26 years of age statistically significantly ascribed themselves the attribute of being "resourceful" (t=-2.23; p<0.05). There were no other significant differences, although there were still attributes that were given average scores of 3 and above 3 by participants in both age groups (relaxed, confident, cheerful, polite, ambitious, adaptive, confident). However, although the result is not statistically significant, it was shown that participants younger than 26 years, on average, were more likely to ascribe to themselves the attributes "warm", "gifted" and "self-centered", while participants older than 26 years gave higher scores to "intelligent" "open", "reliable" and "correct". In terms of the lower average scores (under 2), the participants of different ages agreed with each other only for the attribute "fearful". The participants under 26 years gave low average scores to "non-persistent" and "slow", and participants older than 26 years, to the characteristics "anxious", "uncertain" and "gives up easily". The standard deviation of the self-evaluation of some of the characteristics was above 1. There were bigger individual differences among the participants younger than 26 years in terms of the self-evaluation of attributes: bright, polite, systematic, intelligent, irresponsible. There was a standard deviation higher than that of the self-description of participants older than 26 years, for the attributes: envious, intelligent and incompetent. The results of the differences in the self-perception of athletes with disabilities in relation to gender are shown in Table 3 and 4. There are significant differences for the characteristics "relaxed" and "introspective", where the significance in favor of the female participants. In terms of the other attributes there are no statistically significant differences between the genders, although men and women gave lower scores (under 2) to different characteristics. For example, men gave low scores to: "non-persistent", "slow", "envious", "fearful" and "uncertain" and women evaluated "anxious" and "incompetent" with low scores. A standard deviation higher than 1 in men occurred only in the case of two attributes (self-centered, intelligent). For female participants there are a number of characteristics with variations in the self-evaluation for more than one standard deviation.

DISCUSSION
A priori belief in the existence of capacity characteristics for optimal personal functioning, psychological growth and development, emotional stability, integrity and vitality is not only a theoretical but also a practical question, regardless of whether a person has a disability. The classical Aristotelian view of human nature presupposes that man has a natural tendency toward psychological growth and integration. People naturally seek challenges, develop interests, discover new opportunities and actively internalize social impacts (Mladenović, 2010b). Studies have shown that all people, regardless of individual differences, tend to achieve authentic and autonomous functioning, in order to feel competent and accepted by those around them (de Charms, 1983;  . Whether a disability is present at birth or acquired, there is the important intra-psychological question of the individual's self-perception, their feelings of personal responsibility, and sense of blame for their condition (Gibson et al, 2013).
Studies into the self-perception and self-concept of people with disabilities have mainly focused on self-esteem, and they make a comparison with persons without disabilities. The results of such research have often shown the negative self-evaluation of persons with disabilities compared to non-disabled people ). The nature of sport, which provides immediate feedback on one's efficiency and competence, can affect the psychological experience of disability in different ways and thus directly and indirectly shape an individual's general self-perception. A study by Lazić and Barić (2013) on athletes with disabilities indicates that active involvement in sport, regardless of the level of competition, gender and age has a positive effect on the entire psycho-physical functioning and acceptance of disability as a component of self-concept.
The results of this study confirm existing findings that sport and physical activity can provide a good "playing field" in life for the development of positive self-perception and optimal psychological functioning.
The attributes most commonly represented in the self-description of athletes with disabilities are: relaxed, confident, cheerful, polite, ambitious, reliable, correct, adoptive and self-confident. On the other hand, attributes that are rarely represented are: non-persistent, slow, fearful and anxious. Such results, even without a causal analysis of the relationship between sport and self-concept, indicate a balanced emotional functioning and emotional stability, self-confidence and focus on the individual's positive potential.
It was presumed that there may be significant differences in terms of the age of the participants, with a less negatively colored stereotypical perception expected in older subjects, i.e. in subjects older than 26 years. The results showed that there are statistically significant differences between the participants, whose age in this study varies from 14-60, in terms of being "resourceful". In addition, there are personality characteristics that are mostly represented by participants younger than 26 years, but not by participants older than 26, and vice versa. So, with high average scores, participants older than 26 years perceive themselves to be intelligent, open, reliable and correct, while participants under 26 years of age, give high average scores to he attributes "warm", "gifted" and "self-centered". Traits that respondents older than 26 attributed more to themselves are in the category of ability (intelligent), relationship with other people (open, correct) and attitude towards work and commitments (reliable). The athletes with disabilities under the age of 26 gave high scores to the characteristics in the categories of abilities (gifted) and in relation to oneself (self-centered), and one in the categories of emotions (warm). Such self-perception matches the descriptions of the main orientation in certain life periods . In adolescence and young adulthood, people are more focused on their potential and personal affirmation, and are even self-centered, while in adulthood the focus goes from oneself to relationship with other people and obligations (reliable). So, young athletes with disabilities, who are actively involved in sport, probably have goals they want to achieve, and are focused on building a relationship with themselves. On the other hand, athletes with disabilities, age from 27 to 60, have probably already achieved their sporting ambitions, and now they can allow themselves to move their focus onto other people and interpersonal relations (Stevens, 1983). In any case, regardless of their age and developmental needs related to their individual stage of life, all participants showed a positive self-perception.
The generalization of the results obtained in relation to gender seems questionable, considering the very small number of female participants (N=5). All the qualities that male athletes with disabilities mostly ascribe to themselves, appear in the self-perception of female athletes with disabilities (relaxed, confident, cheerful, polite, ambitious, reliable, correct, adaptive, confident), in addition to which the women ascribe to themselves other characteristics (self-critical, gifted, systematic, intelligent, open). It seems that the self-concept of women is broader and more positive, because far more characteristics are rated with higher average scores than for males. An evaluation of two attributes (relaxed and self-critical) showed that those two attributes are on the border of statistical significance in favor of female athletes with disabilities. If we take into account the characteristic that females evaluated with high scores, and males did not, it seems that women athletes with disabilities are more self-critical and open in approaching self-evaluation, and they also ascribed to themselves more talent and ability than males did. The self-concept of males is narrower, with fewer characteristics rated with high scores, but with more negative traits rated with low scores. In any case, it is important to emphasize the large individual differences among females, but also the small number of participants, thus making it necessary to check the results on a larger sample.
An important implication of this study is that athletes with disabilities have a positive self-perception, which is consistent with descriptions of optimal and mature psychological functioning from the literature in the field of psychology (Rodgers, 1942;Maslow, 1982;.

CONCLUSION
In such literature, there is still very little research dealing with the affirmation of disability as a part of the identity of persons with disabilities, regardless of whether it is congenital or acquired . An overall positive self-concept and optimal personal functioning (well-being) are not possible if a disability is not acknowledged and included in the personal identity of an individual, and studies show that people with disabilities are often isolated and sent to a circle of people with similar disabilities (Olkin, 2008). Inclusion in the wider social community and society is possible through sport, and improving competence in areas such as sport, can obviously lead to a positive transfer of emotional stability and positive self-perception in other areas, as well as the general self-concept (Martin, 2011;Scarpa, 2011).