Tough Teams and Optimistic Individuals: The Intersecting Roles of Group and Individual Attributes in Helping to Predict Physical Performance.

This study tested the effects of individual and group-level characteristics on performance during a mandatory and challenging physical education course at the United States Military Academy (USMA). We focused on attributes related to mental toughness, and examined both self-report and utilized an other-rating scale that measures mental toughness-related characteristics and is important to USMA generally. We examined course scores for 5,581 first-year students over five academic years, accounted for background physical fitness, and determined how mental toughness attributes at the group and individual-level contributed to overall course score and scores on constituent events (e.