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Appraisal in a Team Context: Perceptions of Cohesion Predict Competition Importance and Prospects for Coping
Study: Appraisal in a Team Context: Perceptions of Cohesion Predict Competition Importance and Prospects for Coping
Abstract: Athletes' precompetitive appraisal is important because it determines emotions, which may impact performance. When part of a team, athletes make their appraisal within a social context, and in this study we examined whether perceived team cohesion, as a characteristic of this context, related to appraisal. We asked 386 male and female intercollegiate team-sport athletes to respond to measures of cohesion and precompetitive appraisal before an in-season game. For males and females, across all teams, (a) an appraisal of increased competition importance was predicted by perceptions of higher task cohesion (individual level), better previous team performance, and a weaker opponent (team level) and (b) an appraisal of more positive prospects for coping with competitive demands was predicted by higher individual attractions to the group (individual level). Consequently, athletes who perceive their team as more cohesive likely appraise the pending competition as a challenge, which would benefit both emotions and performance.
Author: Svenja Wolf
Dr. Svenja A. Wolf is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Social Psychology Program at the University of Amsterdam. In her work, Svenja focuses on two prominent attributes of almost any performance context, emotions and groups, and investigates how these two factors interact. At the moment, Svenja and her collaborators are fascinated by the idea of collective emotions or emotional convergence in sport and other performance teams and explore why teams converge emotionally, which environmental and personal factors impact this convergence, and, crucially, how collective emotions relate to team performance, group climate, and member adherence. Having competed both in individual and team sports, Svenja has experienced both the supportive and pressure inducing effects of a team firsthand and investigated these effects in a more structured fashion when obtaining her Doctorate in Sport Science (area Sport and Exercise Psychology) at the German Sport University Cologne. In this podcast, Svenja shares some insight from her past and current research as well as from her work as an applied sport psychology consultant.
Links:
Paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26524095
Author: http://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/organisation/staff-members/content/w/o/s.a.wolf/s.a.wolf.html
Quotes:
"The more unified teammates were in regards to goals, and the more they felt the team environment was a place for them to play well, the more important they viewed an upcoming competition."
"If I feel I have friends on the team, and I feel I can lean on these others, then I feel like I have more resources to deal with the upcoming competition."
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By Matt VezzaniStudy: Appraisal in a Team Context: Perceptions of Cohesion Predict Competition Importance and Prospects for Coping
Abstract: Athletes' precompetitive appraisal is important because it determines emotions, which may impact performance. When part of a team, athletes make their appraisal within a social context, and in this study we examined whether perceived team cohesion, as a characteristic of this context, related to appraisal. We asked 386 male and female intercollegiate team-sport athletes to respond to measures of cohesion and precompetitive appraisal before an in-season game. For males and females, across all teams, (a) an appraisal of increased competition importance was predicted by perceptions of higher task cohesion (individual level), better previous team performance, and a weaker opponent (team level) and (b) an appraisal of more positive prospects for coping with competitive demands was predicted by higher individual attractions to the group (individual level). Consequently, athletes who perceive their team as more cohesive likely appraise the pending competition as a challenge, which would benefit both emotions and performance.
Author: Svenja Wolf
Dr. Svenja A. Wolf is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Social Psychology Program at the University of Amsterdam. In her work, Svenja focuses on two prominent attributes of almost any performance context, emotions and groups, and investigates how these two factors interact. At the moment, Svenja and her collaborators are fascinated by the idea of collective emotions or emotional convergence in sport and other performance teams and explore why teams converge emotionally, which environmental and personal factors impact this convergence, and, crucially, how collective emotions relate to team performance, group climate, and member adherence. Having competed both in individual and team sports, Svenja has experienced both the supportive and pressure inducing effects of a team firsthand and investigated these effects in a more structured fashion when obtaining her Doctorate in Sport Science (area Sport and Exercise Psychology) at the German Sport University Cologne. In this podcast, Svenja shares some insight from her past and current research as well as from her work as an applied sport psychology consultant.
Links:
Paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26524095
Author: http://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/organisation/staff-members/content/w/o/s.a.wolf/s.a.wolf.html
Quotes:
"The more unified teammates were in regards to goals, and the more they felt the team environment was a place for them to play well, the more important they viewed an upcoming competition."
"If I feel I have friends on the team, and I feel I can lean on these others, then I feel like I have more resources to deal with the upcoming competition."