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The concept of cohesion in sports teams and its impact on conformity and team performance. the importance of task cohesion, social cohesion, and teamthink in promoting group effectiveness and enhancing team success. It also touches upon the role of group norms and self-talk in sports performance. References are provided for further reading.
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Running Head: SPORT TEAMS SUCCESS
By Jenna Fitzgerald
A thesis submitted to the University Honors Program at Southern New Hampshire University to complete HON 401, and as part of the requirements for graduation from the University Honors Program Manchester, New Hampshire May 2019
Approved by:
(Faculty Mentor)
(University Honors Director)
2019 May
Abstract Cohesion can play multiple roles on a sports team allowing them to either flourish or fail during their season. The purpose of this research is to discuss how cohesion and conformity lead to a team’s success and/or failure. By understanding cohesion, a sports team can become successful in their present and future endeavors. There are two types of cohesion, task and social; when each are used together it can help a sports team achieve success. Cohesion can promote conformity among sport teams. There are negative aspects of conformity such as groupthink that can inhibit a sports team’s future success. Conformity can also have positive aspects such as teamthink. Teamthink is important because it can enhance a sports team effectiveness and performance. There are helping and hindering forces of cohesion that can propel a sports team forward or hold them back. Cohesion of a sports team is effective when all aspects of task cohesion, social cohesion, and teamthink are involved. Negative consequences occur when aspects of cohesion and conformity are out of balance.
Keywords: Conformity, task cohesion, social cohesion, teamthink, groupthink, sport teams
found that some people never conformed but three-quarters did at least once. (Myers & Twenge, 2018, pg. 130-131) Sports teams also have a high ability of creating cohesion. Cohesion is a process that is seen through groups that stick together and remain united in its pursuit of its goal (Carron, Bray & Eys, 2002). There are two types of cohesion studied in social psychology, task and social cohesion. Task cohesion is when members of a group work together to achieve common team goals (Richardson, 2013). Social cohesion determines how much each member of a team likes each other and interact accordingly (Richardson, 2013). Each of these forces of cohesion work together to create teamwork in a sports team that helps them achieve success. Sports teams often aim for the idea of cohesion and working together as one. However, most sports teams are likely to face conformity at one point or another. Conformity is often looked for the negative consequences it can have but without conformity a team could not exist. On the other hand, cohesion is often seen as a more positive outlook for team to achieve. Unfortunately, too much cohesion can lead to a standstill in a team’s performance. This is because too much cohesion within a team can lead become difficult to maintain and may lead to groupthink which allows for less innovation (Wise, 2014). Discussion Groupthink Groupthink is the mode of thinking that persons engage in when trying to conform to other ideas and lose the ability of creative thoughts (Myers & Twenge, 2018, pg. 194). Groupthink comes from the negative effects of conformity. Conformity can create a lack of diversity. There are no new ideas when players are constantly conforming to what the majority is saying. Without new ideas, there may be no way of solving specific problem that can pop up on a
team. Groupthink focuses on how team decision making can be negative (Manz & Neck, 1995). This is because with groupthink there is a pressure and tendency to conform with one another. Groups that become contaminated by groupthink fail to critically address their topic which leads to inadequate alternatives (Manz & Neck, 1995). This occurs because of the self-censorship members put on themselves to avoid uncomfortable disagreements. The pressure to conform leads groupthink without innovative ideas because it may call into question the morality of the group. Groupthink can also lead to another negative about conformity that it creates a blind belief system. This means that the players are allowing and trusting everything their coaches and management tell them to do. That means someone else has control over their team even though they might not know what is best for the team. This is seen when direct social pressure is placed on a member who argues against the group's shared beliefs (Manz & Neck,1995). Along with that, players of the team are left self-censored because their own thoughts deviate from the group and they are pressured to conform. Groupthink can help create the emergence of self-appointed mind guards will not allow information from the outside that does not agree with the group ideas (Manz, & Neck, 1995). This leads to conformity that will result in nothing ever changing within a group. If every player on a sports team conforms to the rules and regulations, then ideas that are out of date will stay. It is important on a team to keep creating and updating the rules and regulations on how things are done but if they are always static then the team become predictable. Also, this conformity can hinder them in their next competition. Groupthink leads to collective efforts to rationalize decisions, stereotype views of outsiders, or shows other group leaders as weak or incompetent (Manz, & Neck, 1995). This can lead to a sports team not taking their next opponent seriously
role. A work team can potentially enhance its performance through group mental imagery to establish a common image of how best to address an existing challenge (Manz & Neck, 1995). Teamthink allows groups to focus on the positive and not get caught up in the negative challenges that they could be facing. These challenges can lead them to solving problems the same way that has not worked before. Teamthink allows players to think on an individual level and not allow the group to decide what their beliefs are. Teamthink is important to the benefit of team success but without cohesion of a group teamthink would not be possible. Cohesion is a process that is seen through groups that stick together and remain united in its pursuit of its goal (Carron, Bray, & Eys, 2002). The generally held assumption about team cohesion and team success is that greater team cohesiveness is assumed to be related to greater team success (Carron, Bray, & Eys, 2002). Usually a team that is confident in the knowledge of each other can help them create successes throughout their competitive season. Types of Cohesion Cohesion has been considered one of the most important variables in the study of small group dynamics such as sport teams (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). There are forces that can help drive a team to cohesion or block it. These forces are called helping forces or hindering forces (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). A helping force allows the group to further its success while a hindering force may set the group back. These forces are what bind group cohesion and keep the players together. Groups that possess strong unifying forces typically stick together over time, where groups that do not possess a strong bond disband after a short period of time (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). Group cohesion relies on the individual’s attraction to the task that the group is performing (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012).
Task cohesion may be the trigger that initially ties the player to the team and want to perform. While social cohesion comes later when the individual is concerned about the quality of interpersonal relations (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). There are three identified influences of cohesion. The influences are group cohesion resulted from a sense of belonging, stem from interdependent work with required coordination, and group cohesiveness developed from both interpersonal and group attraction (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). Task cohesion and social cohesion are an important part of developing leadership among teams. There are many leadership factors that act as important interpersonal mediators of task and social cohesion (Jowett & Chaundy, 2004). The leadership in sport teams comes from a coach who is training the team daily. Coach leadership is defined as a coach’s behavioral processes that influence team members toward performance accomplishments (Jowett & Chaundy, 2004). The goal of the coach is to individually improve each member of the team and to make each member work together cohesively. The interactions between a coach their athletes are associated with performance of the athletes’ sense of belongingness to the team (Jowett & Chaundy, 2004). The coach must be able to properly train the team while also providing specific behaviors that the team must follow. Higher levels of coaches’ training and instruction, social support, positive feedback, and democratic decision-making help explain the relationship with task cohesion (Jowett & Chaundy 2004). Social cohesion was linked to coach social support behaviors, as well as training and instruction behaviors (Jowett & Chaundy, 2004). Social cohesion of a coach relies on how well the coach is trusted by the team members and if what she/he is training has produced in positive results. Team task cohesiveness are consistent among members of the same team (Carron, Bray, & Eys, 2002). This can connect to conformity that creates a fair distribution of the workload. On
quality and productivity, and a better environment (Manz & Neck, 1995). The rules and regulations of a team are the group norms that players conform to follow. Cohesion is a mix of positives and negatives on an organizational team. There can be many issues that arise on a team because of goals, roles, conflicting team membership, or procedures (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). However, on a sports team these conflicts seem to disappear because of the highly defined structure of a team and how they operate. Group cohesion in sports can be critical when a team needs a synchronized response. Cohesion in a sport team is aimed at the ability to learn about each other to enhance the overall performance (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). Teams must be connected with their coach through strategy, must make game-time decisions, and benefit from conformity in order to benefit from cohesion (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). Cohesion of a team leads to better development of a team overall. Group cohesion if implemented properly can create a sport team that can focus on maximizing team member effort, skill, and team-level coordination and strategy (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012). To develop cohesion for a sports team a coach can work on developing team members. This means that a coach needs to create an environment that involves building a collective identity. Once that is established then a coach must make it easy for team members to be close together, which can be done by focusing on similarities among team member. Lastly a coach should put a positive spin on the team’s performance and challenge the team in new and various ways. (Pescosolido & Saavedra, 2012) If implemented successfully then a team may be able to achieve its goals during its season of competition. Also, the team may be able to solve problems collectively as they arise.
Individual Performance within a Team A team is made up of many individuals working together towards a specific goal. For a team to their most successful that means that the individuals have to me at their best. There are many components to having an individual member of a team to enhance their performance. The strategies to enhance performance include self-talk and mental imagery. However, strategies vary at different levels of competition such as youth versus adult. Enhancing performance of an individual can help lead to further team success. As the individual become more advanced in their sport they can begin to benefit the team in different areas of the game. Enhancing performance Enhancing performance for athletes can consist of mental strategies. The strategies include self-talk, and mental imagery; which require ultimate focus from the athlete. Each method can be utilized by the athlete to help them overcome obstacles and achieve their full potential. Sports psychologist can assist athletes achieve their full potential by guiding them in cognitive behavioral techniques. The techniques are used to promote the control of one’s internal mental and emotional processes (Schwanhausser, 2009). Every technique can be modified and for youth sports it is important to have an approach that is naturally occurring. One technique is acceptance-based approaches which are used to enhance self-awareness of internal experiences from a nonjudgmental stance (Schwanhausser, 2009). Approaches give athletes ideas on how to view specific aspects of their competition and come up with the best solution to solve them. This allows an athlete to solve any issues they have in their performance. Youth Athletes Youth athletes can benefit from the acceptance-based techniques because it allows them to identify the values in their participation. With identifying these values allows the athlete to
basic techniques are the general stepping stones to the larger and more complex psychological skills of an athlete; such as cognitive reconstructing. For an athlete to see positive advancements in their performance, a sport psychologist must know the demands of the athlete. Demands are different for every athlete and every sport; the basic techniques will not benefit an athlete because they are too generalized. The identification of a psychological demands on a specific sport can be hard to distinguish. There are multiple models that discuss the ideas around the most important demands for a sport. These models include ideas such as, continuity of impact, training years, injury risk, motivation, and self-constructs. Each model presents a different problem for athletes to face when trying to enhance their performance. The importance of finding the correct technique for an athlete is crucial because each athlete presents different needs to enhance their performance. Enhancement of their performance is important because then their team can become more successful on the field. Self-Talk Self-talk is used by sports psychologist to encourage the performance of the athlete. The benefits of self-talk can be seen in the fundamental principles of cognitive behavioral therapies (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). The treatments of these therapies aim to change an individual’s thoughts, interpretations, and behaviors (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). The changes an individual can make will help them motivate themselves and realize their true potential. Benefits also include enhancing their performance on the field. This will benefit their team as well because if their performance is grater on the field then so is their teams performance. There is a treatment that was developed within the cognitive behavioral therapies called, self-instructional training. This framework of treatment has been described as a form of self-
management (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). Self-instructional training can help regulate behavioral performance by addressing statements to oneself. The statements influence the individuals’ attentional and appraisal processes (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). This framework continues to facilitate new skill development and enhancing performance responses. Self- instructional strategies have flourished into sports psychology. These strategies are referred to as “self-talk interventions” and aim to facilitate learning and enhancing performance through stimulation of appropriate responses (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). Through positive self-statements and self-instructions on task performance an athlete can provide themselves confidence to perform at their highest level. Self-talk can be implemented on any level to improve performance. In a study, by Van Raalte et al., students used a positive self- talk cue, “I can do it”, to perform better on dart throwing accuracy (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). The group that uses the self-talk cue performed better on accuracy task than the control group. There are two types of self-talk, motivational and instructional. Motivational self-talk is all about cues that aim at psyching up, maximizing effort, building confidence, and creating positive moods (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). Instructional self-talk includes cues about focusing or directing attention and providing instruction about technique, strategy, or kinesthetics attributes of a skill (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). There was another self-talk training study implemented in elite sprinters in the 100-meter race. A race plan was developed to use appropriate cues for the three segments of the race (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2011). There were three cue words (push, heel, and claw). From 0- meters the cue word “push” was used to for the acceleration phase. The second cue word “heel” was used during the 30-60 meters for the maximum velocity phase. The third cue word “claw” is used during the last 60-100 meters of the race for speed endurance. This intervention resulted in
perspective, control, multiple senses, and speed (Taylor, 2012). Perspective in imagery can take two different forms. The first form involves seeing yourself from inside your body looking out, as if you were performing your sport (internal perspective) (Taylor, 2012). The second is an external perspective that involves seeing yourself from outside your body looking down (Taylor, 2012). Athlete’s use the method that comes most natural to them, but it allows them to focus in the moment of their action. Control is the next step in imagery that allows an athlete to imagine what they want to imagine. If something goes wrong in their image, then that can reveal a lack of confidence in their ability to perform. It is important that if a mistake occurs then the athlete must rewind the imagery in their head and continue it until they get it right. Not fixing the mistake could negatively impact the athlete’s confidence and therefore performance (Taylor, 2012). Multiple senses take imagery from just visual to an actual sport experience. Multi- sensory reproduction allows the athlete to duplicate the sights, sounds, physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions that they would experience in competition (Taylor, 2012). This is the most powerful part of mental imagery because it creates feeling in an athlete’s body. The sensations that are created in the imagery allow an athlete to take steps to either fix, relax, or understand the sensations. The last step to motivational imagery is speed. This is the ability to adjust the speed of the imagery allowing the athlete to focus on specific parts (Taylor, 2012). Such as, slowing part of the image down to focus on technique and then an athlete can speed the image up to see it in ‘real-time’. Motivational imagery is used to help the athlete’s ability to see and correct visually what they are doing wrong. However, the focus of motivational imagery is to improve the confidence of the athlete which enhances their performance.
Athletes use mental imagery to promote their self-confidence. This confidence then allows them to be more successful during their competitions. The enhancement of an athlete’s confidence can improve their athletic performance. Measures in self-confidence for athlete’s is called sport confidence. The State Sport Confidence Inventory found that athletes with high self- confidence used more motivational general imagery and have better visual imagery than those who were low in sport confidence (Mills et al., 2000). The conclusion of this inventory stated that if an athlete wants to develop, maintain, or regained sport confidence then the athlete should imagine being confident (Mills et al., 2000). Sport confidence is a strength of belief but does not describe what the certainty is about. The athlete can use self-confidence to believe in their ability on the field; this is turn helps them reach their peak performance level. Self-efficacy is coined as a better definition because it is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to produce specific attainments (Mills et al., 2000). Sport confidence can be further explained through self-efficacy because it influences behaviors such as choice, performance, effort, strategy choice, goal choice, and goal commitment (Mills et al., 2000). This understanding of confidence allows athletes to benefit from imagery. With more self-efficacy an athlete is better off knowing they are capable of the images they create in their mind. Athletes with higher self-efficacy are shown to perform better than those who have low self-efficacy. The study done by Millis, Munroe, and Hall concluded that athletes who are high in self- efficacy use all functions of motivational imagery more than athletes in low self-efficacy. This shows the use of motivational imagery and the positive affect it can have on an athlete, enhancing their performance. However, this imagery is not as effective unless the athlete is confident in their abilities to succeed. Sport confidence is what allows the athlete to believe the
shooting the ball out of fear of missing or miss relevant external cues (Gee, 2010). Since their attentional focus is directed internally they cannot focus on their competition. An athlete not focused on their competition affects the entire team. One member of the team that loses focused means that the team now has a weak spot. The athlete can then be targeted as a weak point from the other team and be exploited. This leads to the athlete’s team being less successful and decreased the performance of the team overall. To combat this apprehension of self-doubt and athlete must have the ability to change cognitions while competing (Gee, 2010). Rational emotive therapy can be used as a strategy to help the athlete interpret situations. Rational emotive theory is used by sport psychologist to allow the athlete to interpret a competitive situation from a rational grounded perspective (Gee, 2010). Through this therapy athletes learn their self-worth is not tied to the outcome of their athletic contest (Gee, 2010). The therapy teaches that even though winning and losing for an athlete is very important, losing does not represent the end of the road. Accepting this can help the athlete overcome their fear of failure. The process of an athlete overcoming this fear is through the restructuring of their thought patterns (Gee, 2010). Self-talk, thought stopping, centering, and reframing strategies can change an athlete’s anxiety. Strategies such as these are used to help an athlete replace thoughts with more positive and affirming statements (Gee, 2010). This allows for a positive cognitive mindset and leads to the potential of them enhancing their performance. This in turn leads to the potential of the team having their performance increase which then leads to a more successful team. Measuring Cohesion Cohesion is essential for team effectiveness, performance, and success. The measurement of cohesion is tricky and hard to follow. Since cohesion is inconsistently defined and measured it
makes it difficult to compare findings across studies. In a study by Eduardo Salas, Rebecca Grossman, Ashley Hughes, and Chris Coultas the measuring of team cohesion can become more cohesive, reliable, and significant. The study defines cohesion as the shared bond/attraction that drives team members to stay together and want to work together (Salas et al. 2015). Cohesion is an umbrella term that encompasses many different definitions that complicates being able to measure it. Another aspect that makes it difficult to measure is that it also can be measured at the team and individual level. Lastly, cohesion happens overtime among teams so the ability to measure it becomes even more difficult because of the time dedicated to it. The study conducted a literature search for peer-reviewed articles and included ones that were empirical and explored the relationship between cohesion and performance. Once the articles were discovered they qualitatively coded them to extract information based on whether studies established relationships between cohesion and performance. The study recognizes the multidimensional construct of cohesion and how others decide to define cohesion as unidimensional anyways. For cohesion to be measured on one term, the divergent definitions and dimensions had to be identified. Unfortunately, this is not the end of issues that come with trying to measure cohesion. There are many issues that come with trying to measure cohesion consistently. One critical issue is when measuring and understanding cohesion as a multilevel assessment (Salas et al. 2015). The articles used in this study reported cohesion was defined as a team variable in 37% of measured relationships (Salas et al. 2015). While other articles (14%) chose to identify cohesion as a multilevel variable (Salas et al. 2015). For cohesion to be measure effectively to help enhance team performance there needs to be less ambiguity. Strategies for measuring cohesion seem to favor team-level because it yields more significant findings. However, if more
