New Study Released: ‘I am more than my sport’: Exploring the dynamic processes of identity change in athletic retirement' - Haslam, McAulay, Cooper, Mertens et al. (2024)
In short: Managing identity change in retirement from elite sport is key to adjustment and we can interpret these themes through the lens of the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC).
More detail: The purpose of this research paper was to better understand the impactful career transitions athletes face. The research explored the experience of 21 competitive and successful elite athletes who had retired from sport. All athletes engaged within a single session psychoeducational programme to explore the challenges associated with transitioning out of sport prior to being interviewed about their sport identity, their experiences of identity loss and change in retirement.
Three themes were identified: 1) the role of identity and self-categorisation in shaping sport performance, 2) adjusting to identity loss (subthemes: experience varied depending on the extent to which a person had multiple or exclusive identities), 3) attempts to ‘remoor’ identity in the transition (subthemes including searching for a new identity and actively repurposing identity).
This research utilises the SIMIC to provide a framework for extending our understanding of the complexities of identity change associated with retirement from elite sport.
Find it here:
Haslam, C., McAulay, C., Cooper, D., Mertens, N., Coffee, P., Hartley, C., ... & Fransen, K. (2024). “I’m more than my sport”: Exploring the dynamic processes of identity change in athletic retirement. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 102640.
