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Sport Psychology(psy407)

Lesson 36

TEAM COHESION IN SPORT

Intuitively athletes, coaches, and sport enthusiasts understand that there is more to athletic success than the

collective or individual skills of a team. Sport psychologists refer to this extra team ingredient as group or

team cohesion.

There are numerous examples of talented teams that failed to live up to expectations, or to less talented

teams who performed far above expectations. In sports, it is a well-established principle that a group of

individuals working together is far more effective than the same individuals working independently of one

another. On the basketball team, there may be several individuals capable of scoring twenty or more points

a game. However, in the interest of team success, the coach may require that one or more of these athletes

assume nonscoring roles. For example, a point guard has the primary responsibility of setting up plays and

getting the offense started, while the power forward must "crash" the boards and get offensive and

defensive rebounds. Athletes who play these specialized roles rarely score as many points as shooting guards

or forwards. Yet, out of the desire to be "team players", these athletes accept less glamorous roles for the

common good of the team. Thus, as a group or team evolves, a certain structure develops. This structure

varies from group to group and situation to situation, but it is critical for team success.

Not only do members of successful teams have the ability to work together (teamwork); they also enjoy a

certain attraction to one another. In this respect, it seems logical that teams composed of members who like

each other and enjoy playing together will somehow be more successful than teams lacking this quality.

As a social psychological topic, team cohesion ranks as a very important factor for enhancing team

performance and feelings of satisfaction among members. In the following two lectures, team cohesion will

be discussed in terms of:

Its defining characteristics

Its measurement

Its determinants

Its consequences

Its development

Defining Characteristics of Team Cohesion

Albert Carron (1992), a prominent sport social psychologist, defined group cohesion as "a dynamic process

which is reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of goals and

objectives. Fundamental to the study of team cohesion is the understanding of group dynamics. Members

of a team or group begin to interact with each other the moment the group is first formed.

Direct and Indirect Measurement of Cohesion

The indirect measurement approach to assessing team cohesion tries to get at team cohesion by asking each

team member how she feels about every other member of the on some basic question (e.g., How much do

you like the different members on your team?). Summed scores from team members would represent a

measurement of team cohesion.

The direct measurement approach to assessing team cohesion is direct in the sense that players are asked to

indicate how much they like playing for the team (individual attraction) and how well they feel the team

functions as a unit (group integration). Research using the indirect approach has generally failed to find a

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Sport Psychology(psy407)

meaningful relationship between team cohesion and team or individual behavior. the indirect approach to

measuring team cohesion is very rare in sport psychology research today.

Measurement of Team Cohesion

A number of inventories have been developed for measuring team cohesion in sport. An incomplete list of

inventories include:

Sports Cohesiveness Questionnaire (SCQ; Martens & Peterson, 1971);

Team Cohesion Questionnaire (TCQ; Gruber & Grey, 1981);

Sport Cohesion Instrument (SCI; Yukelson, Wienberg and Jackson, 1984);

Group Environment questionnaire (GEQ; Widmeyer, Brawley & Carron, 1985);

Team Psychology Questionnaire (TPQ; Partington and Shangi, 1992)

Of these five inventories, the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) has been sport psychologists'

primary inventory of choice over the last fifteen years. The GEQ has continued to be used extensively by

researchers and practitioners The GEQ is composed of eighteen items that measure the four team cohesion

dimensions.

The four team cohesion dimensions measured by GEQ are:

Personal factors

Team factors

Leadership factors

Environmental factors

Determinants of Team Cohesion

Now let's focus attention upon the determinants of team cohesion.

In an important study reported by Widmeyer and Williams (1991), factors that determine team cohesion

were investigated. In this investigation, team cohesion was measured using the GEQ. The results of this

investigation revealed that all the four determinants, personal factors, team factors, leadership factors and

environmental factors predictive of some aspect of team cohesion. The strongest predictor of team

cohesion, however, was personal satisfaction. The best way to develop team cohesion is by cultivating a

personal feeling of satisfaction towards the team and team members.

References

Cox, H. Richard. (2002). Sport Psychology: Concepts and Applications. (Fifth Edition). New York:

McGraw-Hill Companies

Lavallec. D., Kremer, J., Moran, A., & Williams. M. (2004) Sports Psychology: Contemporary Themes. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishers

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