Ruud J.R. Den Hartigh

University of Groningen | RUG · Department of Psychology

This study on psychological momentum (PM) in sports provides the first experimental test of an interconnection between short-term PM (during a match) and long-term PM (across a series of matches). Twenty-two competitive athletes were striving to win a prize during a rowing-ergometer tournament, consisting of manipulated races. As hypothesized, athl...

Across different domains, from sports to science, some individuals accomplish excellent levels of performance. For over 150 years, researchers have debated the roles of specific nature and nurture components to develop excellence. In this article, we argue that the key to excellence does not reside in specific underlying components, but rather in t...

Complex systems applications in human movement sciences have increased our understanding of emergent coordination patterns between athletes. In the current study, we take a novel step and propose that movement coordination between athletes is a multiscale phenomenon. Specifically, we investigated so-called "complexity matching" of performance measu...

Based on in-depth interviews, Hardy et al. focused on the role of psychosocial factors in the development of elite and super-elite athletes. They reveal interesting differences and commonalities in the frequencies at which certain aspects related to life events, personality, contextual factors, etc. were reported. Here, we argue that insights in th...

Applying an established theory of cognitive development―Skill Theory―the current study compares the game-reading skills of youth players selected for a soccer school of a professional soccer club (n = 49) and their non-selected peers (n = 38). Participants described the actions taking place in videos of soccer game plays, and their verbalisations w...

The current literature on resilience shows a trend toward a dynamic process conceptualization, moving away from the previous trait-approach. However, the term “dynamic” is increasingly treated as a buzzword and is thereby oversimplified in the literature. The aim of this article is to develop a unified language pertaining to resilience as a dynamic...

Selecting the right individuals for a sports team, organization, or military unit has a large influence on the achievements of the organization. However, the approaches commonly used for selection are either not reporting predictive performance or not explainable (i.e., black box models). In the present study, we introduce a novel approach to selec...

Manuscript accepted for publication at Behavioral and Brain Sciences, as a commentary on: Murayama, K. & Jach, H. (in press). A critique of motivation constructs to explain higher-order behavior: We should unpack the black box. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X24000025 Murayama and Jach rightfully aim to conceptualiz...

Resilience has traditionally been conceptualized as resisting, bouncing back from, and growing from a stressor. However, recent literature has pointed out that these are different processes with bouncing back coming closest to the literal meaning of the term resilience. To detect whether an individual demonstrates one of these three stressor-respon...

Previous research on sports performance has mostly been conducted: (a) at a single point, or at most, a few points in time, (b) at the group level, and (c) as a causal chain of monodisciplinary predictor and outcome variables. In the present research, we argue and demonstrate that the next important step should be to monitor, analyze, and visualise...

Special forces selection is a highly demanding process that involves exposure to high levels of psychological and physical stress resulting in dropout rates of up to 80%. To identify who likely drops out, we assessed a group of 249 recruits, every week of the program, on their experienced psychological and physical stress, recovery, self-efficacy,...

Many models of motor performance acknowledge that adapting to stressors plays a major role in how we move. However, most models lack a precise conceptualization of the way in which stress-response dynamics unfold. To fill this void, we first present popular models from the domain of biology and psychology which argue that the impact of a stressor d...

In the past decade, various recommendations have been published to enhance the methodological rigor and publication standards in psychological science. However, adhering to these recommendations may have limited impact on the reproducibility of causal effects as long as psychological phenomena continue to be viewed as decomposable into separate and...

Previous research on sports performance has mostly been conducted: (a) at a single point, or at most, a few points in time, (b) on the group level, and (c) as a causal chain of monodisciplinary predictor and outcome variables. In the present research, we argue and demonstrate that the next important step should be to monitor, analyze, and visualize...

Selecting the right individuals for a sports team, organization, or military unit has a large influence on the achievements of the organization. However, the approaches commonly used for selection are either not reporting predictive performance or not explainable (i.e., black box models). In the present study, we introduce a novel approach to selec...

Resilience – the process of returning to the previous level of functioning following a stressor – has received much attention in the domain of sports in the past decade. Because scholars concur that resilience emerges from dynamic interactions between multiple variables, we propose that network analyses with psychological and physiological variable...

In the past decade, various recommendations have been published to enhance the methodological rigor and publication standards in psychological science. However, adhering to these recommendations may have limited impact on the reproducibility of causal effects, as long as psychological phenomena continue to be viewed as decomposable into separate an...

The goal of this on the road driving study was to investigate how drivers adapt their behavior when driving with conditional vehicle automation (SAE L3) on different occasions. Specifically, we focused on changes in how fast drivers took over control from automation and how their gaze off the road changed over time. On each of three consecutive day...

In this commentary, we argue that theoretical and practical progress in motivation science can be made by relying on complex and dynamic explanations for developmental processes and goal attainment at the individual level. In our view, such a dynamic and personalized perspective is a possible answer on Wigfield and Eccles’ call for more complex sys...

Soccer coaches and scouts typically assess in-game soccer performance to predict players’ future performance. However, there is hardly any research on the reliability and predictive validity of coaches’ and scouts’ performance assessments, or on strategies they can use to optimize their predictions. In the current study, we examined whether robust...

Dutch special forces operators, also known as commandos, perform in mentally and physically tough environments. An important question for recruitment and selection of commandos is whether they have particular personality traits. To answer this question, we first examined differences in personality traits between 110 experienced Dutch male commandos...

Across different domains, there are 'star performers' who are able to generate disproportionate levels of performance output. To date, little is known about the model principles underlying the rise of star performers. Here, we propose that star performers' abilities develop according to a multi-dimensional, multiplicative and dynamical process. Bas...

The number of resilience conceptualizations in psychology has rapidly grown, which confuses what resilience actually means. This is problematic, because the conceptualization typically guides the measurements, analyses, and practical interventions employed. The most popular conceptualizations of psychological resilience equate it with the ability t...

Athletes are exposed to various psychological and physiological stressors, such as losing matches and high training loads. Understanding and improving the resilience of athletes is therefore crucial to prevent performance decrements and psychological or physical problems. In this review, resilience is conceptualized as a dynamic process of bouncing...

Purpose: The study of load and recovery gained significant interest in the last decades, given its important value in decreasing the likelihood of injuries and improving performance. So far, findings are typically reported on the group level, whereas practitioners are most often interested in applications at the individual level. Hence, the aim of...

Skill assessments are essential to elite soccer coaches and clubs, to provide an evidence-based approach to player evaluation. Valid methods thereby support talent identification and development procedures (e.g. scouting and training strategies). However, it remains a complex challenge. Small-sided games have emerged as a promising tool, due to hig...

In the current study we investigated if drivers of conditionally automated vehicles can be kept in the loop through lane change maneuvers. More specifically, we examined whether involving drivers in lane-changes during a conditionally automated ride can influence critical takeover behavior and keep drivers' gaze on the road. In a repeated measures...

Complex systems typically demonstrate a mixture of regularity and flexibility in their behavior, which would make them adaptive. At the same time, adapting to perturbations is a core characteristic of resilience. The first aim of the current research was therefore to test the possible relation between complexity and resilient motor performance (i.e...

In this paper we investigated if keeping the driver in the perception-action loop during automated driving can improve takeover behavior from conditionally automated driving. To meet this aim, we designed an experiment in which visual exposure (perception) and manual control exposure (action) were manipulated. In a dynamic driving simulator experim...

Scouts of soccer clubs are often the first to identify talented players. However, there is a lack of research on how these scouts assess and predict overall soccer performance. Therefore, we conducted a large‐scaled study to examine the process of talent identification among 125 soccer scouts. Through an online self‐report questionnaire, scouts wer...

Purpose: Staying injury free is a major factor for success in sports. Although injuries are difficult to forecast, novel technologies and data-science applications could provide important insights. Our purpose was to use machine learning for the prediction of injuries in runners, based on detailed training logs. Methods: Prediction of injuries w...

The aim of the present research is to test whether resilience in a motor task enhances or diminishes when encountering stressors. We conducted a lateral movement task during which we induced stressors and tracked the movement accuracy of each participant over time. Stressors corresponded to organismic constraints (i.e., visual occlusion), task cons...

Resilience is a key construct to understand when athletes continue to perform optimally, or when they break down. Although there is consensus that resilience can be conceptualized as a dynamic process, it remains an open question whether studying such a process on a group level adequately represents the individuals within a given sample. As a first...

Predicting performance in soccer games has been a major focus within talent identification and development. Past research has mainly used performance levels, such as elite vs. non-elite players, as the performance to predict (i.e. the criterion). Moreover, these studies have mainly focused on isolated performance attributes as predictors of soccer...

In the current study, we applied the dynamical systems approach to obtain novel insights into resilience losses. Dyads (n = 42) performed a lateral rhythmical pointing (Fitts) task. To induce resilience losses and transitions in performance, dyads were exposed to ascending and descending scoring scenarios. To assess changes in the complexity of the...

In the past decades, much research has examined the negative effects of stressors on the performance of athletes. However, according to evolutionary biology, organisms may exhibit growth under stress, a phenomenon called antifragility. For both coaches and their athletes, a key question is how to design training conditions to help athletes develop...

Our purpose was to show that highly skilled student-athletes (n = 146, 41.1% female, mean age 14.1 years) differ across domains with regard to their need for competence, effort, and attributions. As hypothesized, the results show that relative to the school domain, in the sport domain, student-athletes had a stronger need for competence, a higher w...

What could be the impact of a last-minute equalizer on players’ psychological momentum (PM) in a high-stake, knock-out football match? In the current study, 86 competitive male players were asked to imagine that they were playing in a cup final in which they were trailing 1–0 or leading 1–0. Subsequently, participants watched a video clip in which...

People are remarkably able to move together. In this symposium speakers will present their research from sports to music and beyond.

Long-term learning trajectories evolve through microdevelopmental sequences (i.e., short-term processes of change during learning tasks) and depend on variability during and across learning tasks. The aim of this study is to examine the coupling between short-term teacher-student dynamics and students’ long-term learning trajectories, thereby provi...

Talent identification research in soccer comprises the prediction of elite soccer performance. While many studies in this field have aimed to empirically relate performance characteristics to subsequent soccer success, a critical evaluation of the methodology of these studies has mostly been absent in the literature. In this position paper, we disc...

Research on driving behavior from an ecological psychology perspective axiomatically assumes the drivers intention to perform the driving task. This assumption does not hold for drivers of conditionally automated vehicles who may engage in non-driving-related task but must remain capable of taking back control in response to the vehicle's request....

Crew rowing is often quoted as a natural example of perfect unity. A crew of rowers aims to optimize performance by perfectly moving in synchrony, while they apply all their power at maximum stroke rate. But do they necessarily need to move in in-phase synchrony? It has been suggested that crew members may complement each other’s movements by rowin...

Researchers from the complex dynamical systems perspective seek their explanations of human behavior and development in the dynamical interactions across many levels in an active, situated individual. That is to say, behavior and development are both constraining and constrained by the continuous exchange between a myriad of processes distributed a...

When someone expresses a morally deviant opinion, this person is likely to face derogation by their group. We examined whether people reacted more positively to opinion deviance when social identity was induced from individual expressions, rather than deduced from ingroup similarities. Participants (n = 155 divided over 41 groups) engaged in small-...

Although most research on interpersonal coordination focuses on perceptual forms of interaction, many interpersonal actions also involve interactions of mechanical nature. We examined the effect of mechanical coupling in a rowing task from a coupled oscillator perspective: 16 pairs of rowers rowed on ergometers that were physically connected throug...

In this experimental study, we tested whether athletes’ judgments of affordances and of environmental features vary with psychological momentum (PM). We recruited golf, hockey, and tennis players, who were assigned to a positive or negative momentum condition. We designed a golf course on which participants made practice putts, after which they wer...

In our target article, we proposed the application of the dynamical systems approach to studying how the dynamic process of resilience unfolds over time. Sparked by the commentaries by Bryan and colleagues, Galli and Pagano, and Kiefer and colleagues, we aim to provide clarifications of the dynamical systems approach as well as possible extensions...

Understanding the development of talent has been a major challenge across the arts, education, and particularly sports. Here, we show that a dynamic network model predicts typical individual developmental patterns, which for a few athletes result in exceptional achievements. We first validated the model on individual trajectories of famous athletes...

After driving a vehicle with conditional automation (SAE Level 3) drivers display performance decrements when taking back manual control. This has been labeled the out-of-the-loop problem (OOTLP). This Poster investigates this pressing Human Factors problem from an ecological psychology perspective: corresponding “the loop” to perception-action cou...

The selection of athletes has been a central topic in sports sciences for decades. Yet, little consideration has been given to the theoretical underpinnings and predictive validity of the procedures. In this paper, we evaluate current selection procedures in sports given what we know from the selection psychology literature. We contrast the popular...

Although most research on interpersonal coordination focuses on perceptual forms of interaction [1], many interpersonal tasks, such as crew rowing, also involve interactions of mechanical nature. There is no way to escape from such mechanical influences, as agents physically move each other. As such, the stringent nature of the mechanical coupling...

The current study examined the development of psychological momentum (PM) in table tennis and the effect of a time-out. Eighty table tennis players were exposed to an audiovisual scenario, in which they either came back from 1-7 to 7-7 in an all-decisive game (positive momentum), or in which the opponent came back from 7-1 to 7-7 (negative momentum...

Hoe kunnen prestaties het meest accuraat worden voorspeld? Dit is een cruciale vraag voor mensen die zich bezighouden met de selectie van sporters. In dit artikel bespreken we hoe decennia aan onderzoek in de (selectie)psychologie kan bijdragen aan selectiemethodes in de sport.

On the road to excellence, it is essential to develop resilience, that is, to be able to positively adapt within the context of significant adversity. Researchers tend to agree that resilience is a complex process with a multitude of underlying variables. To stimulate research on the process of resilience, we propose the dynamical system approach t...

In this article, we aim to shed light on a technique to study intra-individual variability that spans the time frame of seconds and minutes, i.e., micro-level development. This form of variability is omnipresent in behavioural development and processes of human experience, yet is often ignored in empirical studies, given a lack of proper analysis t...

As humans, we continuously adapt our behavior to changes in our environment, and our cognitive abilities continuously develop over time. A major question for scientists has been to discover the (cognitive) mechanism that underlies the control of human behavior in real-time, as well as cognitive development on the long-term. This chapter will discus...

As humans, we continuously adapt our behavior to changes in our environment, and our cognitive abilities continuously develop over time. A major question for scientists has been to discover the (cognitive) mechanism that underlies the control of human behavior in real time, as well as cognitive development in the long term. This chapter will discus...

In tennis, mental toughness is often considered highly important in achieving the elite level. The current study is the first to examine behavioural expressions of mental toughness on the court and their relationships with self-reported measures. Based on the input of five experienced tennis coaches of junior tennis players and behaviours used in p...

In crew rowing, agents need to coordinate their movements while physically connected through the boat they share. Modelling a rowing crew as a system of coupled oscillators predicts that the stability of crew coordination decreases with increasing stroke rate. However, rowing literature suggests that crew synchronisation might actually improve at h...

The aim of this study was to examine (1) the temporal structures of variation in rowers’ (natural) ergometer strokes to make inferences about the underlying motor organization, and (2) the relation between these temporal structures and skill level. Four high-skilled and five lower-skilled rowers completed 550 strokes on a rowing ergometer. Detrende...