Personality profiles and coaching leadership preferences among Chinese female basketball players: a latent profile analysis.

Introduction: Athletes' personality is an important factor influencing their preferences for coaches' leadership behaviors. However, previous studies have primarily adopted a variable-centered approach and have rarely examined these preferences from a person-centered perspective. This study aimed to identify latent personality profiles among Chinese female basketball players and examine how these profiles, together with individual personality traits, were associated with preferences for different coaching leadership behaviors, thereby providing practical implications for coaching practice.

Methods: Female athletes from the Women's Chinese Basketball Association (WCBA) and the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBAL) completed measures of the Big Five personality traits and preferences for coaching leadership behaviors. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify personality profiles, followed by analyses of profile differences in leadership behavior preferences and regression analyses to examine the associations between personality traits and coaching leadership preferences within each profile.

Results: Three personality profiles were identified: Sensitive, Average, and Resilient. Across all three profiles, athletes showed the strongest preference for training and instruction, followed by positive feedback, democratic behavior, social support, and autocratic behavior. Except for autocratic behavior ( F = 0.02, p = 0.98, ηp 2 = 0.00), preferences for all other leadership behaviors differed significantly across personality profiles (all p

Discussion: The associations between personality traits and preferences for coaching leadership behaviors differed across personality profiles, indicating that athletes with similar trait levels may exhibit distinct leadership preferences depending on their overall personality configuration. These

Findings: highlight the value of a person-centered approach for understanding athletes' coaching leadership preferences and provide practical implications for developing more individualized coaching strategies.