The Hierarchy of Role Identity in Swimmers of Iranian National Teams and Its Relation to Age and Championship Background

The purpose of this study was to determine the hierarchy of role identity in Swimmers of Iranian national teams and its relation to age and championship background. For this purpose, Curry & Weaner (1987) Role Identity Scale (RIS) and also the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS) (Cieslak, 2004) was employed to 69 Swimmers of Iranian national teams. The content validity of scales was confirmed by experts and the internal consistency of the RIS and AIM scales proved to be 0.90 and 0.87 respectively in a pilot study. The data were analyzed by employing Friedman, Kruskal-Willis and Spearman correlation tests. The results showed that family, athletic, academic and religious role identities constitute first to fourth ranks of athletes’ role identity hierarchy respectively. Also there is an inverse and significant relationship between role identity and athletic identity of players (P < 0.05).