Hagger and Chatzisarantis, Chapter 7

1
Hagger and Chatzisarantis, Chapter 7
Group Processes in Sport
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What is a Group?

• A group is not a mere collection of two or more
  individuals a group comprises two or more
  people, involves interaction between people,
  demands an awareness of some form of common fate
  or goals, has a specific structure such as the
  role and status of individuals within the group
  and group norms
• Hagger and Chatzisarantis (2005, p. 161)

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What is a Group?

• A group is two or more individuals in
  face-to-face interaction, each aware of his or
  her membership of the group, each aware of the
  others who belong to the group, and each aware of
  their positive interdependence as they strive to
  achieve mutual goals
• Johnson and Johnson (1987, p. 8)

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Carron and Hausenblas (1998) Conceptual Framework
Member Attributes
Individual Outcomes
Performance, satisfaction, attributions
Group Structure
Group Cohesion
Group Processes
Group Environment
Team Outcomes
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Group Norms

• Group norm the acceptable behaviours and
  beliefs held by members of a group/team

• Powerful influence on team players behaviour
  because self-esteem is intertwined with
  membership of the group
• Going against group norms can result in
  derogation from the group and dissonance in the
  individual
• Group norms tend to result in conformity

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Team Norms

• Colman and Carron (2001) interviewed sports teams
  to establish which norms were considered
  important
• Competition effort, support, punctuality
• Training punctuality, productivity, attendance
• Team norms used by coaches to maintain unity and
  cohesion (Colman Carron, 2001)
• Persuasive communication can be used to promote
  favourable team norms such as productivity (Petty
  and Cacioppo, 1986)

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Collective Efficacy

• Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) beliefs about
  ability to produce outcomes also operates at
  group level
• Collective efficacy beliefs shared by
  individuals in a team of their teams abilities to
  achieve group outcomes or goals (Carron
  Hausenblas, 1998)
• It is an individual belief, but it is also a
  consensus, individuals collective efficacy often
  strongly correlated with that of other team
  members

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Collective Efficacy

• Collective efficacy closely related to team
  performance (Feltz Lirgg, 1998)
• E.g. athletes with high collective efficacy and
  appropriately set goals maintained personal
  performance in martial arts performers (Greenlees
  et al., 2000)
• Group goals mediated the effect of collective
  efficacy in triad on performance of a
  muscular-endurance task (Bray, 2004)

.87
.92
Collective efficacy
Group goals
Performance
.77
-.20
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Group Cohesion

• Group or team cohesion Social forces that
  maintain attraction between members of a group
  and make them resistant to disruption
• High team cohesion is assumed to be associated
  with high levels of performance (Widmeyer, 1990)
• Group cohesion hypothesized to have two
  dimensions
• Dimensions of cohesion (individual attraction to
  the group vs. group integration)
• Reasons for involvement (task vs. social)
• Measured using Group Environment Questionnaire

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Carron et al.s (1985) Conceptual Model of Group
Cohesion
Reasons for involvement
Dimensions of cohesion
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Cohesion-Performance Relationship

• Holt and Sparkes (2001) meta-analysis of 46
  studies in sport revealed a large effect of group
  cohesion on team performance
• There is also evidence that group cohesion also
  predicts individual performance (Bray Whaley,
  2001)
• However, evidence suggests that performance
  affects cohesion rather than the other way around
  (Grieve et al., 2000)
• A meta-analysis of correlational designs
  supported the performance-cohesion link but the
  reciprocal relationship was weak (Mullen
  Cooper, 1994)

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Cohesion-Performance Relationship

• What about sports that are not really team
  sports e.g. swimming, gymnastics?
• Matheson (1997) found that different dimensions
  from Carron et al.s model were influential in
  different sports
• Attraction to group task dimension was
  particularly important for coacting sports
• Group integration task more important for team
  sports
• ATG seems to be more relevant for coactors

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Changing Group Cohesion

• Target key variables thought to influence
  cohesion (structure variables from Carrons
  model)
• Collective efficacy
• Communication
• Cooperation
• Acceptance
• Widmeyer and McGuire (1996) used 4-phase
  programme to promote cohesion (an intervention)
• Educational phase (emphasised important of team
  goals)
• Goal-development phase (planning goals)
• Implementation phase (statistics used to evaluate
  goal attainment)
• Renewal phase (evaluation of goals for 6-game run)

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Roles and Team Performance

• A role is a pattern of behaviour expected of an
  individual in a social situation c.f. group
  norms
• Types of roles
• Formal within team e.g. marker, attacker,
  defender, captain
• Informal e.g. spokesperson, team policeman,
  joker etc.
• Formal roles are important to cohesion and a key
  outcome is effectiveness of performance in
  assigned role (role performance)
• Role performance is affected by three factors
• Role conflict inability to meet demands of
  assigned role
• Role ambiguity a lack of understanding of the
  demands of the role
• Role efficacy estimate of ability to perform to
  demands of role

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Roles and Team Performance

• Emphasises need to promote high role efficacy and
  reduce role conflict

• The study also indicated that the effect of role
  ambiguity on role performance was mediated by
  role efficacy (Beauchamp et al., 2002)

• Beauchamp et al. (2002) found that if a rugby
  player was unsure of the nature of his/her role
  in the team (role ambiguity) and had low role
  efficacy it was likely to lead to role conflict

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Model of Role Performance
Formal roles
Informal roles
Role conflict
Role ambiguity
Role efficacy
Role performance
Source Beauchamp (2004)
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Social Facilitation Early Work

• Triplett (1898) observed track cyclists and
  noticed that performances were faster when
• Paced compared with being alone
• In competition compared with being paced

• Hypothesised that the presence of the audience,
  particularly competition, energised performance
• Triplett tested his hypothesis using a fishing
  line apparatus and found that children performed
  better when racing against each other than when
  alone

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Social Facilitation Early Work

• Allport (1920) termed this effect social
  facilitation
• Triplett focused on competition (actually
  coaction) but Allport suggested a more
  generalised effect known as mere presence
• Mere presence is defined as an entirely passive
  and unresponsive audience that is only physically
  present
• Allport hypothesised that facilitation would
  occur when the audience either coacted (but not
  necessarily competed) or passively observed (mere
  presence)

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Social Facilitation Early Work

• Much research corroborated this phenomenon in
  animals and even insects!
• However, there were a number of studies on
  people (e.g., Dashiell, 1930) that showed effects
  inconsistent with hypotheses
• There were null findings and even findings of a
  decrease in task performance in the presence of
  others
• This lead many to question the social
  facilitation effect
• Inconsistent methodological approaches coaction
  vs. audience/mere presence

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Social Facilitation Evolution of Theory

• Zajoncs (1965) drive theory reinvigorated
  research in social facilitation
• Mere presence of others creates an increase in
  arousal (evolutionary link) and energises the
  dominant response
• The dominant response is that what is
  typically done in that situation i.e. a
  well-learnt/habitual response
• If the dominant response is the same as that of
  the task, (i.e., correct) then performance will
  be facilitated
• If the dominant response is not the same, (i.e.,
  incorrect) then performance will be inhibited

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Social Facilitation Zajoncs (1965) Drive Theory
If correct
Social facilitation
Arousal
Presence of others
Increase in performing dominant responses
If incorrect
Social inhibition
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Social Facilitation Definition

• An improvement in the performance of
  well-learned/easy tasks and a deterioration in
  the performance of poorly-learned/difficult tasks
  in the mere presence of the same species
• Hogg and Vaughan (2005, p. 278)

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Evaluation Apprehension

• Despite general support for the drive theory of
  social facilitation (e.g., Geen Gange, 1977)
  some questioned whether presence caused drive
• Cottrell (1972) suggested that we learn about
  reward/punishment contingencies based on others
  evaluation
• Suggested that it was the perception of an
  evaluating audience that created arousal, not
  mere presence
• Social facilitation is an acquired effect based
  on perceived evaluations of others

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Evaluation Apprehension

• Cottrell et al. (1968) supported this finding in
  an experiment with 3 audience conditions
• Blindfolded
• Merely present (passive and uninterested)
• Attentive audience
• Only the 3rd condition should give rise to
  facilitation or inhibition of dominant response
• Results supported hypotheses and social
  facilitation found only when the audience was
  perceived to be evaluative

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Evaluation Apprehension
Time taken for simple/complex typing tasks as a
function of social presence
Source Schmitt et al. (1986)
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Evaluation Apprehension

• Guerin and Innes (1982) suggested that social
  facilitation only occurred when the actor could
  not monitor the audience
• This created uncertainty and the actor could not
  tell what the audience was thinking, creating
  uncertainty and arousal
• Guerin (1989) letter copying task experiment
  social facilitation only occurred when the
  observed could NOT be seen
• Recall definition of social psychology
  behaviour in implied presence of others
• Finding has also been corroborated in electronic
  surveillance studies (Aiello Douthitt, 2001)

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Evaluating the Evidence for Social Facilitation

• Meta analysis of 241 social facilitation studies
  (Bond Titus, 1983) Mere presence accounted for
  between 0.30 to 3.0 percent of the variance in
  performance
• Findings did suggest that audience facilitated
  performance of simple tasks but inhibited
  performance of complex tasks
• Also found little support for the evaluation
  apprehension hypothesis, suggested that this is
  actually a methodological artifact

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Social Facilitation in Sport

• Sport research tends to support evaluation
  apprehension rather than mere presence, but
  results are mixed (Strauss, 2002)
• Smith and Crabbe (1976) found an active
  experimenter was more effective in enhancing
  performers in performance of a balancing motor
  task compared with passive/no experimenter
  conditions
• Paulus et al. (1972) found that both skilled and
  novice gymnasts performed better in an audience
  condition, but only when they were not forewarned
  of the presence of the audience
• Bell and Yee (1989) found that novice karate
  performers maintained accuracy of their kicks but
  reduced speed when performing in front of an
  audience (complex vs. simple tasks)

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Social Cognition and Social Facilitation

• Presence of an audience and demands of task
  compete for cognitive resources of athlete
  (Baron, 1986)
• Participants with an internal locus of control
  tend to have no performance inhibition when
  performing a novel sports task than those with an
  external locus of control (Hall Bunker, 1979)
• Forgas et al. (1980) found social inhibition
  effects for expert squash players playing as a
  pair, but social facilitation for novices
• Suggestion that under audience conditions expert
  players needed to display they were playing
  co-operatively and therefore curtailed their
  performance

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Social Loafing

• Ringelmann (1913, 1927) observed that men
  pulling on a rope attached to a dynamometer
  exerted less force in proportion to the number of
  people in the group
• The Ringelmann effect

Expected performance
Actual performance
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Social Loafing

• Reasons for Ringelmann effect
• Coordination loss as group size inhibits
  movement, distraction, jostling
• Motivation loss participants did not try as hard
• Ingham et al. (1974) investigated this in real
  groups and pseudo-groups varying the size of
  the group in a tug-of-war situation
• Real group Groups of varying size
• Pseudo-group Only one true participant, rest
  were confederates who did not pull at all

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Social Loafing
Potential performance
Motivation loss
Pseudo-groups
Coordination loss
Real groups
Source Ingham et al. (1974)
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Social Loafing

• The motivation loss is what is called social
  loafing and is independent of loss of
  coordination
• Latané et al. (1979) supported this through
  clapping, shouting, and cheering tasks
• Recorded amount of cheering/clapping noise made
  per person reduced by
• 29 in 2-person groups
• 49 in 4-person groups
• 60 in 6-person groups

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Social Loafing
Potential performance
Motivation loss, reduced effort, social loafing
Pseudo-groups
Coordination loss
Real groups
Source Latané et al. (1979)
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Social Loafing

• Group size as a decreasingly significant impact
  on effort therefore large effect of a 1 or 2
  person increase when group is small but small
  effect of same increase when group is large

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Evaluating the Evidence for Social Loafing

• Meta analysis of 78 social loafing studies
  (Karau Williams, 1993) 80 found loafing of
  the individual-group comparisons made
• Reasons for loafing?
• Output equity People expect others to loaf, so
  do so accordingly (Jackson Harkins, 1985)
• Evaluation apprehension Group provides anonymity
  but when performance is measured (or individual
  or coactive) they overcome their tendency to loaf
  (Harkins, 1987)
• Matching standards People loaf because they have
  no clear performance standard (Szymanski
  Harkins, 1987)

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Social Loafing and Social Facilitation Unified
Theory

• Need to unify social loafing and social
  facilitation theories (Aiello Douthitt, 2001)
• Jackson and Williams (1985) used computer maze
  tasks to indicate that individual performance was
  enhanced when working collectively on difficult
  tasks and individually on simple mazes
• But this occurred only when performance was
  identifiable or distinguishable in the
  collective
• Also, high self-efficacy reduces the social
  loafing effect (Sanna, 1992)

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Social Loafing in Sport

• Identifiability a key factor affecting whether
  athletes loaf in teams (Everett et al., 1992)
• Sport competence is also a moderating factor,
  perceptions of incompetence may account for
  motivational decrements because athletes belittle
  their contribution (Hardy Crace, 1991)
• Highly superior (mismatched) opposition also
  contributed to loafing (Heuze Brunel, 2003)
• Teams with high collective efficacy tend to
  experience less individual performance decrements
  (Lichacz Partington, 1996)

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Social Loafing in Sport

• Absence of evaluative feedback about performance
  also lead to social loafing even in established
  teams (Hardy Latané, 1988)
• Prior knowledge of social loafing also does not
  seem to affect athletes social loafing in teams
  (Huddleson et al., 1985)
• Three important situational factors to reduce
  social loafing effects
• Competence
• Collective efficacy
• Evaluative performance feedback

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Future Directions in Social Facilitation

• Aiello and Douthitt (2001) suggest an
  integrative framework for social facilitation
• Need to clarify some key aspects of the theory
• Definition of social facilitation
• Identification of salient dimensions
• Predicted effects under given set of
  psychological and situational conditions
• Proposed an integrative model that includes all
  aspects of the theory investigated previously

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Presence Factors Type of presence Relationship
(of other with focal individual) Role of
other Length of presence (time
period) Salience of presence
Situational Factors Sensory cues available
(visual, auditory) Proximity of
others Feedback from others Organisational
climate
Task Factors Difficulty (simple
complex) Cognitive-motor characteristics Tim
e requirements
Individual Factors
Perceptions Reactions
Individual Characteristics

• Perceptions of Situation
• Evaluation pressure
• Need to monitor others (social comparisons)
• Need to check adequacy of own performance
  (self-awareness)
• Challenge or threat
• Perceptions of privacy/invasion

Personality Characteristics

• Performance Capacity
• Task proficiency
• Intelligence
• Motivation

Subsequent reactions

• Initial reactions
• Physiological arousal
• Cognitive conflict

• Self-monitoring
• Self-efficacy

Performance Factors Speed Accuracy Aggressiveness
Cooperation/ Other performance competition
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Home Advantage(or Away Disadvantage)

• A pervasive effect in team (and individual)
  sports
• Often considered a psychological phenomenon
  especially when performers are closely matched in
  terms of ability
• Arousal and cognitive explanations of social
  facilitation may result in the dominant response
  being reinforced by a partisan crowd or
  audience
• But social facilitation affected by many
  parameters
• Social psychological theories on home advantage
  (or is it an away disadvantage?)

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Home Advantage

• Schwartz and Barsky (1977) conducted first
  studies in home advantage
• Has since been replicated in numerous sports,
  usually team sports
• Some have found in certain games (e.g.,
  championship play-off matches) that the home
  advantage can be overturned (Baumeister
  Steinhilber, 1984)
• Numerous methods have been used
• Published archival statistics (e.g., crowd size,
  win-loss statistics)
• Individual team statistics rather than league
  averages
• Observational data from TV (e.g., crowd
  hostility)
• Survey data from team personnel (e.g., players,
  coaches etc.)

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 1. Territorial/ethological
• Russell (1983, 1993) defence of territory gives
  evolutionary advantage
• More aggressive displays by home teams (Varca,
  1980)
• Higher testosterone levels in association
  football players at home games (Neave Wolfson,
  2003)
• No conclusive evidence more of a
  philosophical rather than empirical
  explanation (Russell, 1983)

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 2. Crowd Size, Density, Hostility
• Size (Schwartz and Barsky, 1977)
• Assume home audience is majority partisan
• Home win percentage increases in proportion to
  crowd size
• But Russell (1983) found no correlation between
  performance indicators (e.g., goals scored) and
  crowd size
• Negative correlation between crowd size and
  performance indicators of away teams away
  disadvantage (Silva Andrew, 1987)
• Varca (1980) and McGuire et al. (1992) found that
  aggressive behaviours were more prevalent and
  advantageous in home team players

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 2. Crowd Size, Density, Hostility
• Density
• Density number of spectators relative to
  ground/stadium capacity
• Agnew and Carron (1994) found density to be
  significantly related to winning percentage
• But, only a small effect many other factors
• Conclusion density rather than size matters for
  home advantage but size may be related to away
  disadvantage

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 2. Crowd Size, Density, Hostility
• Crowd protest (hostility)
• Episodes of protest during matches significantly
  contributes to performance gap in home and away
  teams (Greer, 1983)
• Silva (1979) suggested that the protest served to
  distract players and disrupt concentration
• However, Saliminen (1993) found when home crowds
  supported the away team, the home teams
  performance increased!
• Therefore it may be that any support positive
  or negative will positively affect home team
  performance

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 3. Sport Type (Schwartz and Barsky, 1977)
• Indoor sports greater home advantage maybe due to
  proximity and density of crowds
• Gayton and Langevin (1992) found home advantage
  in an individual sport (wrestling)
• Called this the prior residence effect
  comfort with surroundings, familiarity
• Bray and Martin (2003) found no home advantage in
  downhill skiers

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 4. Home Venue Familiarity
• Loughhead (2003) examined effect of change of
  home venue on performances of professional
  hockey, basketball, and football
• No change in home advantage overall
• High quality teams were unaffected by the move
• Low quality teams seem to experience an
  improvement probably because the gap between the
  facilities is greater

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 5. Distance Travel (Schwartz and Barsky, 1977)
• Distance travelled does affect home advantage
• But the effect is very small (Courneya Carron,
  1991) and time zones seem not to have a large
  effect (Pace Carron, 1992)
• Recent evidence suggests distance may not be the
  factor but circadian rhythms
• Steenland and Deddens (1997) found that West
  Coast American football teams playing away games
  at East coast locations (Monday night football)
  were playing at times close to their
  physiological optimum
• This reduced or eradicated the home advantage

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 6. Referee Bias
• Do referees favour the home team?
• Greer (1983) suggested that
• decrement in away team performance after
  protests was not linked with referee bias
• Nevill et al. (2002) found that officials
  watching videotaped games with and without crowd
  noise awarded fewer fouls to the home team when
  crowd noise was present
• Jones et al. (2001) found no evidence for bias in
  umpire decisions in home or away teams
• Lehman and Reifman (1987) found that home star
  players incurred fewer penalties than away team
  players

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 6. Referee Bias
• Pygmalion effect expectation that home teams
  will do better so subconscious bias
• Sheer and Ansorge (1979) tested this effect in
  gymnasts expected that star gymnasts are always
  last in rotation
• They changed the order of rotation so that
  stars went first judges were more biased
  towards last performers even though these were
  the least skilled in the team
• Findlay and Ste-Marie (2004) found reputation
  bias in figure skaters

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Theories of Home Advantage

• 7. Home Disadvantage
• Baumeister and Steinhilber (1984) found that home
  advantage was overturned in high-pressure
  last-game situations high expectation seems to
  negate home advantage
• Schlenker et al. (1985) reanalysed the data and
  found much smaller effects
• Such high-pressure games may inhibit the
  dominant response because
• Increased arousal may form a distraction (Baron,
  1986)
• Attention is moved away from appropriate cues for
  action (Baumeister, 1984)
• Player may focus too greatly on well-learnt
  skills and the exertion of cognitive control
  forms a disruption (Baumeister, 1984)
• Fear of failure results in athletes becoming too
  self-aware and not able to identify appropriate
  cues (Championship Choke)