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Larger effort gains in weaker relay swimmers independent of their starting order
Abstract
Members of sports teams often differ in their individual performance capabilities. While numerous laboratory studies have shown that especially less capable members exhibit larger effort gains in teams as compared to their individual performance, related findings in relay swimming remained ambiguous. Thus, this research aims to clarify whether relative strength among the team members represents an independent source of effort gains in swimming relays (i.e., faster swim times in the relay as compared to the individual race). Statistical analyses of relay swimming performances in elite-class (Study 1) and U.S. college (Study 2) competitions were conducted with a total N = 1,488 cases including 1,020 swimmers. We tested the hypothesis that weaker swimmers show larger effort gains in relays than stronger swimmers. The results of both studies correspond and confirm this hypothesis: Weaker relay members exhibit significantly larger effort gains than stronger swimmers. Thus, this study provides evidence for the relative strength hypothesis under real-world conditions. Based on our findings, and contrary to the prevailing preference of swimming coaches, we recommend that the strongest swimmers should not be positioned first in the serial order of the relay team.
... A first line of research has shown that effort gains increase across the relay with the last members or anchors, who are often the fastest swimmers of the relay, typically showing the most pronounced effort gains (i.e., a serial position effect; Hüffmeier et al., 2020;. Beyond this serial position effect, a second, more recent line of research has demonstrated that the relative strength of the relay members also plays an independent and crucial role for the extent of exhibited effort gains: The weaker a relay member is relative to their teammates, the more pronounced their effort gains are (i.e., a relative strength effect, Braun et al., 2022; see also Osborn et al., 2012). ...
... However, motivation as an overarching construct encompasses the direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior (Geen, 1995). As the current study only studies the intensity and persistence of behavior, which together make up effort, we-in line with more recent research (Braun et al., 2022;Hüffmeier et al., 2022)-will use the term effort gains in this manuscript. this standard; Hertel et al., 2008;Kerr et al., 2007) may function as a mediator. ...
... Samples from such naturally restricted populations can typically not be recruited for quantitative research purposes to a satisfactory extent (i.e., the resulting sample size would not reach required levels of statistical power, see Skorski & Hecksteden, 2021). This may be a reason why no research so far has looked into the psychological mechanisms underlying the effort gains of the weakest relay members although these gains are a relevant and robust finding in Sport Psychology (Braun et al., 2022). To nevertheless study these mechanisms, we take a different approach in Study 1: We regress the weakest relay members' observed performance gains (i.e., their faster swimming times in the relay as compared to the individual competition) on their performance discrepancies vis-à-vis the second-weakest member. ...
Members of swimming relays often show effort gains in relays (i.e., more effort and faster swimming times in the relay versus the individual competition). The weakest relay members typically exhibit the most pronounced effort gains. However, the underlying psychological processes are unclear. Prior research suggests social comparisons with stronger fellow relay members, perceived social indispensability, or a combination of both processes as plausible mediators. In Study 1, using linear-mixed-model and regression analyses on N = 239 observations from 222 elite US college swimmers, we found empirical support only for the social indispensability hypothesis. Study 2, a survey among N = 46 German national team swimmers, substantiated the results, because the athletes most often mentioned processes related to social indispensability as motivating them. Our findings offer theoretical conclusions for expectancy × value models on team member effort expenditure and practical implications for coaching and selecting the weakest members for swimming relays.
... 2,4,5 However, there are a few exceptions to this finding where the slowest swimmer (relative-strength hypothesis), regardless of positional leg, showed the most performance gain. 1,3,6 Additionally, one study showed the fastest swimmer in the first leg swam significantly slower than their individual times compared to the slowest. 6 Regardless of which hypothesis has more support, the dominant motivational factors theorized to influence individual effort in swimming relays are the perceived indispensability of the swimmer to the team and perceived ability comparisons with one's teammates. ...
... 1,3,6 Additionally, one study showed the fastest swimmer in the first leg swam significantly slower than their individual times compared to the slowest. 6 Regardless of which hypothesis has more support, the dominant motivational factors theorized to influence individual effort in swimming relays are the perceived indispensability of the swimmer to the team and perceived ability comparisons with one's teammates. 4,7,8 In the serial position hypothesis, the swimmer in the last position may perceive themselves to be most indispensable to the outcome because the other members have already finished their leg of the race, and there is no one who can compensate for them if they do not give their best effort. ...
... 2 In the relative strength hypothesis 1 , the slowest swimmer of the relay may swim faster compared to their individual times because they know they are the weakest link on the team and may not want to risk negative evaluation. 2,6,7 For coaches, recommendations from these championshipbased studies range from having the strongest swimmers in any position but first in the serial order of the relay team 6 to not having them go last unless they are highly motivated and see themselves as indispensable to the team outcome. 4 Does this knowledge, however, help coaches at the non-elite level and at non-championship meets in selecting a relayteam and its order? ...
This study examined the moderating effects of efficacy beliefs and perceived indispensability on individual efforts in early-season collegiate swimming relays. Effort changes from swimmers’ individual best times to relay-leg times were compared as a function of relay members’ relative strength (i.e., fastest or slowest) and serial position (i.e., first or last leg). Participants (N = 199) were collegiate swimmers in 200, 400, or 800-yard freestyle relays at fall invitational meets providing 260 cases included for analysis. Individual lifetime best times, adjusted relay times, rank, serial position, and self-report measures (i.e., efficacy, perceived indispensability of their relay performance) were used for hierarchical multiple regressions. Results indicated that the slowest relay members came closer to their individual best times compared with their team members. The fastest members showed less effort change toward their individual best times than their team members. However, efficacy beliefs in one's teammates had a small positive moderating influence on the fastest members’ effort in relay performances. Based on our results, we recommend Division II and III collegiate coaches not be too concerned with positional order by particular rank at early season invitationals; instead, focus on how to obtain the most effort from each relay member. However, the slowest swimmers may perform better if not positioned first.
... Swimming relays have received increased attention from the scientific community due to the recent inclusion of new relay events (i.e., mixed relays) in the Olympic and World Swimming Championship programmes. In the last years, various studies have been conducted analysing competition data on pacing strategies in relay races (McGibbon et al., 2020), the line-up of relay teams in terms of team order strategy , effort gains possibly originating from increased motivation in relay teams (Braun et al., 2021(Braun et al., , 2022, as well as the specific race segment characteristics of relay events . ...
Objectives
There exists a wealth of evidence that athletes must regulate their emotions for optimal performance and wellbeing. In addition to athletes’ attempts to regulate their own emotions, they may also attempt to regulate each other’s emotions (interpersonal emotion regulation). Though self- and interpersonal emotion regulation likely co-occur, previous research has not explored how these strategies concurrently impact athletes’ emotions and performance outcomes. In the current study, we examined whether athletes’ emotional self-regulation and the receipt of interpersonal emotion regulation from their teammates were related to their anxiety and goal achievement during competition.
Design
Quantitative, cross-sectional retrospective survey design.
Method
Data were gathered following sport competitions from 509 participants from 50 interdependent sport teams from Canada and the UK (Mage = 19.0, SD = 3.1).
Results
Analysis of the data using structural equation modeling revealed that after accounting for pre-competition anxiety, received interpersonal emotion regulation was not associated with anxiety during competition, though affect-worsening self-regulation was positively associated with anxiety during competition. Received interpersonal emotion regulation was also not associated with goal achievement, yet affect-improving and affect-worsening self-regulation were associated with goal achievement. Nevertheless, when the influence of emotional self-regulation on anxiety and goal achievement was set to zero, affect-improving and affect-worsening interpersonal emotion regulation were associated with anxiety during competition and affect-improving interpersonal emotion regulation was associated with goal achievement.
Conclusions
These data can be interpreted as evidence that emotion regulation actions between teammates are important for anxiety and performance outcomes, albeit this effect is attenuated in the presence of athletes’ own emotional self-regulation. These results extend the extant research on self- and interpersonal emotion regulation in sport, and in line with these observations, we highlight a number of future research opportunities for researchers examining emotion regulation in performance contexts.
Although group work has the potential to both reduce and increase the effort expenditure of its members, effort losses (i.e., reduced effort in group-versus individual work) have long been perceived as (nearly) inevitable in Social Psychology. This notion was elicited, accompanied, and bolstered by (i) pessimistic theorizing on group productivity, and (ii) the primary use of laboratory experiments to study effort expenditure in groups. In this contribution, we adopt a more optimistic theoretical perspective. We review a series of consecutive field and vignette studies showing that individuals often work harder in groups than alone (i.e., effort gains in groups). We show that effort gains in groups are robust and can be reliably observed under various theoretically derived conditions. We also illustrate that effort gains in groups cannot be explained by various alternative explanations, and illuminate underlying mechanisms and moderators of effort gains in groups in field settings. We conclude our review by elaborating on the relevance of our findings for current theorizing, the motivating design of group work, and new directions in the study of effort expenditure during group work.
The present study investigated swimmers’ performances on the starting and turning segments between individual and relay races. A total number of 72 race performances of the same swimmers in both relay 4 × 100 m finals (freestyle, medley, and mixed freestyle) and individual 100 m finals or semi-finals (butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle) from the LEN European Swimming Championships were compared with repeated measures MANOVA. Swimmers performed 5–7% faster starts in the relay than in the corresponding individual events, despite no differences in the flight phase and a lower performance (shorter distances and slower velocities) on the underwater start section. The 15 m turn times were slower in the butterfly relay races although no specific differences in the underwater parameters were observed. These results suggest that specific training of the starting and turning segments should be performed under relay conditions to optimise pacing and performance in the underwater sections.
This preregistered meta-analysis theoretically and empirically integrates the two research strands on effort gains and effort losses in teams. Theoretically, we built on Shepperd’s (1993) framework of productivity loss in groups and Karau and Williams’ (1993) Collective Effort Model (CEM) and developed the Team member Effort Expenditure Model (TEEM), an extended expectancy × value framework with the explicit addition of an individual work baseline. Empirically, we included studies that allowed calculating a relevant effect size, which represents the difference between an individual’s effort under individual work and under teamwork conditions. Overall, we included 622 effect sizes (N = 320,632). We did not find a main effect of teamwork on effort. As predicted, however, multilevel modeling revealed that the (in-)dispensability of the own contribution to the team performance, social comparison potential, and evaluation potential moderated the effect of teamwork versus individual work on expended effort. Depending specifically on the level of (in-)dispensability and the potential to engage in social comparisons, people showed either effort gains or losses in teams. As predicted, we also found that people’s self-reports indicated effort gains when they had objectively shown such gains, while their self-reports did not indicate effort losses when they had shown such losses. Contrary to our hypotheses, team formation (i.e., ad-hoc vs. not ad-hoc teams) and task meaningfulness did not emerge as moderators. Altogether, people showed either effort gains or losses in teams depending on the specific design of teamwork. We discuss implications for future research, theory development, and teamwork design in practice.
Prior research showed that swimmers swim faster in relay than in individual competitions if they start at later relay positions. This finding is typically explained via the swimmers’ relay position and their associated perception that their individual performance is indispensable for their teams’ performance. Using multi-level modelling, we disentangled this situational explanation from alternative accounts focusing on individual differences between swimmers. Two studies empirically supported the situational explanation: When using a within-person approach and, thus, controlling for between-person variance (i.e., individual differences between swimmers), the swimmers’ relay position remained a significant predictor of the increases in effort spent in relays. This finding held when controlling for the on average higher instrumentality in the relay versus the individual competitions. Thus, the often observed effort gains in swimming relays probably are due to the swimmers’ relay position as a situational explanation and stem from the motivating impact of team- versus individual work.
Objectives:
We studied whether effort gains in relay as compared to individual swimming competitions generalize to 4 × 400 m track and field relays.
Design:
We employed a 4 (indispensability levels) × 2 (relation of team performance and team outcomes) design.
Method:
German national squad runners (N = 23) were surveyed on their effort expenditure. In our main study, we tested within-person performance differences (N = 397) between individual and relay competitions relying on archival data from major track and field championships. We operationalized the indispensability of one’s own contribution via relay positions and the relation of team performance and outcomes via medal chance.
Results:
Athletes reported effort gains in relay as compared to individual competitions. The archival study revealed effort gains for later positions if the relay had a high medal chance. These effort gains showed an unexpected quadratic pattern across the relay with smaller effort gains at the last position.
Skorski, Extebarria, and Thompson (2016) aim at our article on relay swimmers (Hüffmeier, Krumm, Kanthak, & Hertel, 2012). We have shown that professional freestyle swimmers at relay positions 2 to 4 swam faster in the relay than in the individual competition if they had a high chance to win a relay medal. After applying a reaction-time correction that controls for different starting procedures in relay and individual competitions, Skorski et al. (2016) conclude that swimmers in relays do not swim faster. At first sight, their results appear to show this very pattern. However, we argue that the authors’ findings and conclusion—that our finding is a myth—are not warranted. First, we have also controlled for quicker reaction times in the relay competition. Our correction has been based on the swimmers’ own reaction time data rather than on a constant reaction time estimate and is, thus, more precise than theirs. Second, Skorski et al. treat data from international and national competitions equally although national relay competitions are less attractive for the swimmers than national individual competitions. This difference likely biases their data towards slower relay times. Third, the authors select a small and arbitrary sample without explicit power considerations or a clear stopping rule. Fourth, they unfavorably aggregate their data. We conclude that the reported results are most likely due to the methodological choices by Skorski et al. and do not invalidate our findings.
While people's willingness to work hard can be reduced in teams (i.e., effort losses in teams as compared with individual work), it is less recognized that teamwork can also stimulate additional efforts (i.e., effort gains). Building on and extending existing theory, we (a) suggest an integration of these two research streams, and (b) provide evidence for team-related effort gains in action teams. In a first study, we tested our predictions by reanalyzing a field data set of 302,576 swimming performances in individual and relay races (Neugart & Richiardi, 2013). Consistent with our hypotheses, we observed a linear increase in effort across the relay. The first relay swimmers showed effort losses in the relay as compared with the individual competition whereas the remaining relay swimmers showed effort gains. However, this was only evident (a) when team members could realistically expect meaningful team outcomes in return for their performance, and (b) when the valence of these outcomes was equivalent to individual competitions. If such favorable conditions were not given, we found effort losses in team as compared with individual competitions at all relay positions. Results of a second study (N = 228) showed that the linear increase in effort across the relay was indeed attributable to the team members' serial position and not to their relative strength. Together, the studies demonstrate the motivating potential of teamwork even in the high performance contexts of action teams, such as competitive sports relays, where athletes are already highly motivated in their individual competitions. (PsycINFO Database Record
Foreword Part I. Introduction and Theory: 1. Interpersonal situations: the context of social behavior 2. Outcome interdependence 3. Interaction conditions and person factors 4. Exploring the geography of the outcome patterns Part II The Situations: Preface to the Entries for the Situations Single Component Patterns: 1. Independence: we go our separate ways 2. Mutual partner control: I scratch your back, you scratch mine 3. Corresponding mutual joint control: getting in sync 4. Conflicting mutual joint control: match or mismatch Two- and three-component patterns: 5. The prisoner's dilemma: me versus we 6. Threat: trading loyalty for justice 7. Chicken: death before dishonor 8. Hero: let's do it your way 9. Conjunctive problems: together we can do it 10. Disjunctive problems: either of us can do it 11. Asymmetric dependence: you're the boss Time-extended patterns: 12. Iterated prisoner's dilemma: united we stand, divided we fall 13. Investment: building for the future 14. Delay of gratification: resisting temptation Incomplete information situations 15. Negotiation: can we agree on a deal? 16. Encounters with strangers: lack of information about a partner 17. Joint decisions under uncertainty: bird in the hand 18. Twists of fate: coping with an uncertain future N-person Situations 19. Third parties: effects of an outsider 20. N-person prisoner's dilemma: tragedy of the commons Movement from one situation to another 21. Movement among situations: where do we go from here? Part III. Epilogue.
A recurring question of successful group work is how to maintain high task motivation of the individual members. This paper reviews research on one well documented group motivation gain phenomenon, where group members are more highly motivated than comparable individual performers – the Köhler motivation gain effect. The basic effect is attributed to two psychological mechanisms, one involving upward social comparisons and a second involving the indispensability of group members’ efforts. In addition to summarizing research on the discovery and causes of the basic effect, this review identifies probable moderators of each contributing causal mechanism. Moreover, promising topics for future research as well as implications for the application of the Köhler effect in real group work are discussed.
Two investigations aimed to document motivation gains and losses (the Köhler effect and social-loafing effects) in real-life group work. Specifically, using archival data, motivation changes were analyzed from individual to additive group competition in collegiate swim, and high school track and field relays. Results showed that inferior group members had significantly greater motivation gains than noninferior teammates in preliminary and final swim races. Motivation gains also were significantly higher in the final compared to the preliminary race. Similar results were replicated with the track and field athletes with the weakest member of the team showing larger difference scores from individual to group competition compared to middle-ranked and higher-ranked teammates. On the whole, both studies provide ecological support for the Köhler effect, and that inferior team members showed the greatest motivation gains. No significant differences were found to support social-loafing effects within the same groups, but performances of superior group members tended to be slower. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This research demonstrates social support from fellow group members as unique trigger of additional effort and performance in groups. Support-induced effort gains are shown both compared with groups without social support and individual work. Study 1 examined existing beliefs about motivating group work among employees with professional group work experience (n = 130). The results revealed social support as one of the most frequently reported sources of group-induced effort gains. Study 2 explored self-reported effort intentions in group training scenarios among athletes (n = 94). Finally, Study 3 examined performance as a manifest indicator of effort in an experimental persistence task among students (n = 88). The results of Study 2 and Study 3 showed significant gains due to social support in both self-reported effort and manifest performance, respectively. Together, the results demonstrate that receiving social support from fellow group members leads to higher effort in groups at the level of existing beliefs about motivating group work, at the level of effort intentions, and at the level of manifest performance behavior. The observed findings cannot be explained by established sources of motivation gains in groups such as social comparison or social indispensability. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Research, starting with Köhler (1926), has demonstrated a type of group motivation gain, wherein the less capable member of a dyad working conjunctively at a persistence task works harder than comparable individuals. To explore possible boundary conditions of this effect, the current experiment systematically varied the amount and timing of performance feedback group members received. Results showed: (a) continuous feedback of both members’ performance was not necessary for producing the effect; (b) the effect was attenuated, but not eliminated by delaying and restricting feedback, such that group members only learned which of them was the less capable worker (but not how long s/he persisted) sometime after the task trial was completed; and (c) the motivation gain was eliminated in the absence of any performance feedback (i.e. when neither worker could tell who quit first nor how long either had persisted). Some implications of these results for currently viable explanations of the Köhler effect are discussed. It is concluded that the effect is likely to result from several distinct processes.
This study reports the results of several meta-analyses examining the relationship between four operational definitions of cognitive ability within teams (highest member score, lowest member score, mean score, standard deviation of scores) and team performance. The three indices associated with level yielded moderate and positive sample-weighted estimates of the population relationship (.21 to .29), but sampling error failed to account for enough variation to rule out moderator variables. In contrast, the index associated with dispersion (i.e., standard deviation of member scores) was essentially unrelated to team performance (-.03), and sampling error provided a plausible explanation for the observed variation across studies. A subgroup analysis revealed that mean cognitive ability was a much better predictor of team performance in laboratory settings (.37) than in field settings (.14). Study limitations, practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.
Recent research on the "Kohler effect" (e.g., Hertel, Ken; & Messe, 2000a,b) has demonstrated that persons increase their effort when working with a stronger coworker compared to when working as individuals. One pre-condition for these motivation gains was a conjunctive task structure, suggesting that high instrumentality of the weaker worker's performance for the group outcome is crucial for the effect to occur. Two experiments were conducted to replicate and further explore these instrumentality effects using a physical persistence paradigm. Experiment 1 compared anonymous and non-anonymous teams working conjunctively to test whether collective motives (maximizing group's outcome) or individualistic interests (impression management) are more likely to underlie the Kohler motivation gain effect. Results replicated overall motivation gains and showed only slight effects of the anonymity variation, suggesting that the motivation gains are more a product of collective motives than individualistic interests. In Experiment 2, spontaneous goal setting processes were explored as a possible mediator of the Kohler motivation gain effect. Comparing conjunctiva and additive task conditions for weaker group members again demonstrated that high instrumentality is crucial for the Kohler motivation gain effect. Moreover, while there was no reliable difference between these conditions in reported goal setting, simulating high instrumentality goals by explicit instruction in another additive task condition did lead to significant motivation gains.
Presents a framework derived from expectancy theory for organizing the research on productivity loss among individuals combining their efforts into a common pool (i.e., the research on social loafing, free riding, and the sucker effect). Low productivity is characterized as a problem of low motivation arising when individuals perceive no value to contributing, perceive no contingency between their contributions and achieving a desirable outcome, or perceive the costs of contributing to be excessive. Three broad categories of solutions, corresponding to each of the 3 sources of low productivity, are discussed: (1) providing incentives for contributing, (2) making contributions indispensable, and (3) decreasing the cost of contributing. Each of these solutions is examined, and directions for future research and the application of this framework to social dilemmas are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In 2 experimental studies, social indispensability and upward social comparison were contrasted as potential triggers of motivation gains of inferior group members. Using a cognitive task in a computer-supported environment, individual work was compared with conditions that enabled upward comparison only (coaction), or both upward comparison and social indispensability (conjunctive task). Moreover, working conditions (face-to-face vs. anonymous) and partner-related performance feedback (contemporaneously vs. post-task) were manipulated as potential moderators. Results revealed motivation gains only when partner feedback was contemporaneously available. In this case, upward-comparison effects could be demonstrated during coaction. However, when participants' contribution determined a group outcome, their motivation was additionally increased, demonstrating social indispensability effects. Finally, motivation gains were generally higher during face-to-face compared to anonymous work. © 2008 Blackwell Pu
Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually. A meta-analysis of 78 studies demonstrates that social loafing is robust and generalizes across tasks and S populations. A large number of variables were found to moderate social loafing. Evaluation potential, expectations of co-worker performance, task meaningfulness, and culture had espeically strong influence. These findings are interpreted in the light of a Collective Effort Model that integrates elements of expectancy-value, social identity, and self-validation theories.
Estimates of progression and variability of athletic performance in competitions are useful for researchers and practitioners interested in factors that affect performance. We used repeated-measures mixed modelling to analyse 676 official race times of 26 US and 25 Australian Olympic swimmers in the 12-month period leading up to the 2000 Olympic Games. Progression was expressed as percent changes in mean performance; variability was expressed as the coefficient of variation in performance of an individual swimmer between races. Within competitions, both nations showed similar improvements in mean time from heats through finals (overall 1.2%; 95% confidence limits 1.1 to 1.3%). Mean competition time also improved over 12 months by a similar amount in both nations (0.9%; 95% confidence limits 0.6 to 1.2%). The US swimmers showed a greater improvement between the finals (a difference of 0.5%; 95% confidence limits -0.2 to 1.1%), which paralleled changes in the medal haul of the two nations. The coefficient of variation in performance time for a swimmer between races was 0.60% (95% confidence limits 0.56 to 0.65%) within a competition and 0.80% (95% confidence limits 0.73 to 0.86%) between competitions. Our results show that: (a) to stay in contention for a medal, an Olympic swimmer should improve his or her performance by approximately 1% within a competition and by approximately 1% within the year leading up to the Olympics; (b) an additional enhancement of approximately 0.4% (one-half the between-competition variability) would substantially increase the swimmer's chances of a medal.
Sometimes group work conditions lead to motivation gains rather than to social loafing. Two theoretical explanations for the Köhler motivation gain effect are identified, one stressing social comparison and a second stressing the indispensability of one's effort to the group. The results of three new experiments are reported. Experiment 1 suggested that both explanations are valid and contribute to the Köhler effect. Prior studies suggested that there might be gender differences in the relative importance of these two explanatory processes. Experiment 2 confirmed this suggestion. In Experiment 3, the gender difference was eliminated by priming women with a goal (viz., competition) presumed to be chronically more important to men. It is argued that the relative importance of these two motivational processes will depend on the immediate and chronic importance attached to more personal (viz., to achieve a favorable social comparison) versus collective (viz., to contribute to one's group) goals.
In recent years, a growing number of studies have demonstrated that individuals can exert higher motivation when working in a group compared to working individually. This is particularly true for less capable, inferior group members. To aggregate these findings and to examine preconditions as well as moderating influences on motivation gains of inferior group members, the authors conducted a meta-analysis (17 studies, N=2,240). Results indicated that the overall motivation gain effect of inferior group members observed is moderate and significant (g=.60). Moderator analyses revealed substantial influences of task structure, performance information, physical presence, gender, and task type.
Elite swimmers are individual athletes competing mostly on their own. However, when competing in a relay team, they are exposed to social influences possibly leading to effort gains compared to their individual performance. This study investigated effort gains in relay team members during 4 x 100 m freestyle races of Olympic Games and World Championships across the past 20 years. We assumed increasing effort gains in swimmers competing on later serial positions within their relay team since weaknesses in their performances can increasingly less be compensated by their teammates (social indispensability). Furthermore, we assumed a stronger gain in female athletes since females have been shown to be more affected by social indispensability then males. Using linear mixed modelling analyses, we additionally examined the moderating impact of the relay team outcome (i.e. medal-winning chance) on effort gains and indispensability effects while accounting for current team rankings at change-over. Except for the first swimmer, overall effort gains in relay performances were found as compared to performances in individual races during the same championship. Furthermore, these gains were close to equally distributed among both laps of the 100 m distance. However, even though effort gains are tending to be most pronounced for the last relay team swimmer we failed to detect any significant indispensability effect in our data set. Noteworthy, female swimmers showed larger effort gains when winning a medal (based on the current team rankings) was likely. In contrast, males showed effort gains irrespective of the serial order within the relay team and medal chance. Consequently, tentative recommendations are derived on how to line up a relay team.
Swimming a relay is different from swimming in an individual race. The most visible difference can be found in the starting behavior from the block. For the individual start, swimmers initiate, at rest, their take-off movement as soon as a starting signal appears. For relay starts, swimmers may initiate their take-off behavior any time they wish. However, a relay team will be disqualified if a swimmer’s feet lose contact with the starting platform before the preceding teammate touches the wall. Aside from differences in the starting behavior, motivational effects are thought to influence relay swimming when contributing to a group performance while these effects are amiss during individual races. This chapter summarizes various issues related to the specifics of relay starts as compared to swim starts in individual races. For the relay start, differing movement techniques will be analyzed including traditional upper limbs swing starts with parallel foot placement and new step-start techniques. Moreover, the new OSB11 start block model may offer additional construction characteristics that have possibly not been fully exploited yet for relay starts. Furthermore, literature suggestions will be analyzed on when to initiate the relay start. As a particular characteristic of relay starts, the importance of change-over time will be discussed. For a more practical issue, strategic arrangements of faster and slower relay team members will be examined as well.
The aim of this study was to examine the importance of the change-over time in swimming relay races. Top-class international 4 x 100 m freestyle races were analysed across a 10-year period including three Olympic Games and five European and World Championships. A total of 220 swimmers (116 female, 104 male) were included in this study with an average participation of 1.7 ± 1.2 races. To consider such repeated measurements and other factors (e.g., ranking in the relay race, position in the relay team) linear mixed models for longitudinal data were used for the statistical evaluation. Our results showed significantly longer change-over times for male medallists (0.23 ± 0.08 s) than non-medallists (0.20 ± 0.09 s) which reflects a very likely effect (94.2%). Furthermore, there were significant differences in change-over times between female and male swimmers depending on the current race positions. In total, the influence of change-over time on the final performance in 4 x 100-m freestyle relay appears to be overrated in previous studies.
Although correlational studies indicate that team attributes are related to athletes' precompetitive psychological states, it is unknown how team members experience these relationships. The present study's purpose was to investigate athletes' perceptions of precompetitive team influence. Consequently, we worked from a constructivist realist position and used qualitative methods (interviews with competitive team-sport athletes). An inductive content analysis revealed that athletes perceived established and novel team characteristics and processes to influence their precompetitive psychological states. Athletes perceived these influences as both adaptive and maladaptive, and it appeared that they were qualified by contextual factors as well as intuitive regulatory attempts.
The process of exchange is almost continual in human interactions, and appears to have characteristics peculiar to itself, and to generate affect, motivation, and behavior that cannot be predicted unless exchange processes are understood. This chapter describes two major concepts relating to the perception of justice and injustice; the concept of relative deprivation and the complementary concept of relative gratification. All dissatisfaction and low morale are related to a person's suffering injustice in social exchanges. However, a significant portion of cases can be usefully explained by invoking injustice as an explanatory concept. In the theory of inequity, both the antecedents and consequences of perceived injustice have been stated in terms that permit quite specific predictions to be made about the behavior of persons entering social exchanges. Relative deprivation and distributive justice, as theoretical concepts, specify some of the conditions that arouse perceptions of injustice and complementarily, the conditions that lead men to feel that their relations with others are just. The need for much additional research notwithstanding, the theoretical analyses that have been made of injustice in social exchanges should result not only in a better general understanding of the phenomenon, but should lead to a degree of social control not previously possible. The experience of injustice need not be an accepted fact of life.
Theoretical models of individual motivation in groups represent overt effort intentions as precursors of observable effort expenditure in a group context. We examined established triggers of group motivation gains in a scenario-based paradigm, exploring which of these triggers are already manifested at the level of effort intentions. We expected higher effort intentions during teamwork as compared with individual work when teamwork enabled one of the following processes: social compensation, social comparison, or social indispensability. Fifty-seven basketball players (Study 1) and 97 adolescents (Study 2) were asked to imagine individual and team sports situations and to indicate their intended effort in these situations. Features of the team situations were manipulated following a 2 (task demands: conjunctive vs. additive) × 4 (partner performance: inferior, equally strong, moderately superior, very superior) design. Results showed that social compensation, social comparison, and social indispensability were already at work at the level of overt effort intentions.
Purpose
Social support from fellow team members has been neglected as a unique source of process gains in teams. This paper seeks to introduce the Model of Social Support within Teams (MSST) that explicates testable hypotheses on effects of team partners' affective and task‐related support on team performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model is proposed that specifies the psychological mechanisms by which affective and task‐related support from fellow team members evoke process gains in teams compared with individual work. Moreover, moderators and potential limits of these beneficial effects are described. The model integrates results from experimental research on behaviour in small groups with findings from field studies on organisational citizenship behaviour, team cognition, and efficacy beliefs at the individual and team level.
Findings
It is predicted that affective support predominantly increases individual members' motivation, while task‐related support predominantly improves coordination within teams. Moreover, various moderators (team members' dispositions, task design, team characteristics) are considered.
Practical implications
According to this analysis, social support can be an effective measure to trigger process gains in teams, and thus to increase team performance and organisational success. Concrete interventions to foster social support in teams are derived from the model, among them task design, consideration of social attitudes in selection and staffing, and team training.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a theoretical model explicating a previously neglected source of process gains in teams. In contrast with other sources of process gains, social support relates to the interaction among team members and integrates both motivation and coordination gains.
Social cognitive theory adopts an agentic perspective in which individuals are producers of experiences and shapers of events. Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more focal or pervading than the belief of personal efficacy. This core belief is the foundation of human agency. Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall undesired ones by their actions, they have little incentive to act. The growing interdependence of human functioning is placing a premium on the exercise of collective agency through shared beliefs in the power to produce effects by collective action. The present article analyzes the nature of perceived collective efficacy and its centrality in how people live their lives. Perceived collective efficacy fosters groups' motivational commitment to their missions, resilience to adversity, and performance accomplishments.
The aim of the paper is to assess whether there is free-riding in teams when team production is sequential and when there is competition between teams. This a common case, which, however, has not been considered in the literature so far. We develop a model where team members contributing earlier have an incentive to free-ride more even when there is competition between teams. These predictions are tested on more than 300.000 observations on swimmers’ performance at competitions from all over the world. We find that swimmers in relays perform weaker as compared to their individual performance, and that earlier swimmers’ performance in relays is weaker relative to later swimmers. Our results suggest that competition does not solve the free-riding problem in team production with sequential contributions.
The motivating effects of group work as compared with individual work are not restricted to the research laboratory but have recently been documented in existing groups performing meaningful tasks. Freestyle swimmers at the 2008 Olympics were shown to swim faster in relay groups than in the individual competitions when their contribution was highly instrumental for the relay group (i.e., indispensable) because of their serial position in the group. The present study replicated and extended this work, aggregating a larger sample from major sports events (N?=?199 freestyle swimmers) that also allowed for a competitive test between the instrumentality approach and explanations based on differences in the starting procedures of relay and individual competitions. Consistent with expectancy value models of effort expenditure in groups, swimmers were faster in the relay groups as compared with individual competitions only when (i) a swimmer's performance was highly instrumental for the group's performance (i.e., later serial position in the relay) and (ii) the group's performance was highly instrumental for a positive group outcome (i.e., the relay group had a good chance of winning a medal). The data were not consistent with an explanation of performance differences merely as a result of different starting procedures. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Whereas negative effects of groups on individual motivation have been reported for many years, recent research has begun to show when and why working in a group can produce motivation gains compared to individual work. So far, this evidence has been limited to laboratory settings and rather simple tasks. Using data from swimming competitions at the 2008 Olympics, evidence is presented that motivation gains in groups also occur in field settings with more complex tasks. Based on an instrumentality à value approach, we expect that late positions in a relay trigger motivation gains in groups due to an increase in perceived indispensability for the group outcome. This idea has been initially tested in a pilot study with competitive swimmers, demonstrating that perceived indispensability for the relay outcome indeed increases with later serial positions in a relay. Moreover, the main study with data from the 2008 Olympics revealed performance times consistent with this pattern of indispensability perceptio
This paper presents a simple and widely ap- plicable multiple test procedure of the sequentially rejective type, i.e. hypotheses are rejected one at a tine until no further rejections can be done. It is shown that the test has a prescribed level of significance protection against error of the first kind for any combination of true hypotheses. The power properties of the test and a number of possible applications are also discussed.
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[Excerpt] Our objective in this chapter is to provide an integrative perspective on work groups and teams in organizations, one that addresses primary foci of theory and research, highlights applied implications, and identifies key issues in need of research attention and resolution. Given the volume of existing reviews, our review is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it uses representative work to characterize key topics, and focuses on recent work that breaks new ground to help move theory and research forward. Although our approach risks trading breadth for depth, we believe that there is much value in taking a more integrative view of the important areas of team research, identifying key research themes, and linking the themes and disparate topics closer together. To the extent that we identify new and necessary areas of theory development and research, the value of this approach will be evident.
Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Hochschule zu Berlin, 1927.
Many published papers include large numbers of significance tests. These may be difficult to interpret because if we go on testing long enough we will inevitably find something which is “significant.” We must beware of attaching too much importance to a lone significant result among a mass of non-significant ones. It may be the one in 20 which we expect by chance alone.
Lee et al simulated a clinical trial of the treatment of coronary artery disease by allocating 1073 patient records from past cases into two “treatment” groups at random.1 They then analysed the outcome as if it were a genuine trial of two treatments. The analysis was quite detailed and thorough. As we would expect, it failed to show any significant difference in survival between those patients allocated to the two treatments. Patients were then subdivided by two variables which affect prognosis, the number of diseased coronary vessels and whether the left ventricular contraction pattern was normal or abnormal. A significant difference in survival between the two “treatment” groups was found in those patients with three diseased vessels (the maximum) and abnormal ventricular contraction. As this would be the subset of patients with the worst prognosis, the finding would be easy to account for by saying that the superior “treatment” …
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A look back at the Beijing 400 free relay, 10 years later
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