Introduction

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Matt Hoffmann in this episode. Matt is Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton. He is primarily interested in examining the nature and benefits of high-quality peer athlete mentoring relationships. Relatedly, he investigates how athletes exhibit effective leadership behaviours, including the ways in which leadership is often distributed among team members. Additional interests include the home (dis)advantage phenomenon (particularly in ice hockey), coaching in Masters athletics and the psychosocial experiences of Masters athletes.

 Matt and I discuss a paper he wrote with Dr Jeemin Kim entitled ‘Personality, social status and willingness to mentor teammates among NCAA athletes’ which investigates why athletes are inclined to mentor teammates examining whether personality and social status predicted athletes’ willingness to provide mentorship.