Emotions in Group Sports: A Narrative Review From a Social Identity Perspective (original) (raw)
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Emotion-performance relationships in team sport: The role of personal and social identities
In the field of emotion-performance relationship in achievement situations, the social dimensions of emotions have been understudied. Thus, recent advances highlighted the need to explore identity processes to know whether group belonging may influence individuals' emotions and performance when they are involved in a task-group. The current study introduced an innovative approach to continuously capture the variability of emotions (pleasant and unpleasant), identity levels (personal and social) and performances (individual and collective) experienced during volleyball games. Six elite players (M ¼ 20.14 years; SD ¼ 1.25) volunteered to participate in this research. For the purpose of this study, a program based on the Mouse Paradigm methodological approach was elaborated. A total of 9461 momentary assessments (M ¼ 1576.83 AE 94.38 per participant) was gathered for each of the aforementioned variables. Results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed a partial independence between social and personal identity, as well as an effect of identity levels on unpleasant emotions. Results also highlighted that neither identity levels nor emotions influenced individual performances. Taken together, these results were discussed in terms of theoretical and methodological advances that allow to deepen the understanding of emotions-performance relationships in the context of team-sports.
Group-Based Emotions: Evidence for Emotion-Performance Relationships in Team Sports
Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 2019
Purpose: In team sports, players have to manage personal interests and group goals, emphasizing intricacies between personal and social identities. The focus of this article was to examine the effect of identity mechanisms on appraisal processes, based on the following research question: Does the level of self-abstraction (low [personal identity] versus high [social identity]) lead to group-based emotions and influence performances? Method: An experimental design was used in which the level of self-abstraction was manipulated through the induction of a self-versus a team-oriented goal. Thirty elite male rugby players (M age = 19.06, SD = 0.78, randomly split) participated in a match reproducing conditions similar to those of official games. Individual and perceived team-level emotions and performance were measured 17 times during the match. Results: Linear Mixed Effects models showed that a high level of self-abstraction: (a) led to more positive and less negative individual (variances explained: 52% and 46%) and perceived team-referent (variances explained: 57% and 40%) emotions; (b) reduced the correlation of teamreferent emotions with individual ones; and (c) positively influenced team and individual performances (variances explained: 50% and 19%). Moreover, after controlling for potential effects of the level of self-abstraction, only positive team-referent emotions influenced performance. Conclusions: This study is the first to experimentally manipulate athletes' social identity to examine group-based emotions in sport. Challenging the usual intrapersonal approaches, these findings suggested that social identity and its association with team-referent emotions could be one of the key dimensions of emotion-performance relationships in team sports.
2010
The aim of this exploratory research was to refine the relationship between ingroup identification and three classical identity-management strategies: individual mobility, social competition and social creativity. More specifically, in the particular context of sport spectators' reactions to their team loss, we tested the moderating role of gender in differentiating the use of CORFing (distancing) strategy and the mediating role of negative mood in differentiating the use of social competition and social creativity strategies. To this end, 173 French physical education students were asked to watch an edited video clip about a defeat of the French national rugby union team. As expected, and consistent with past research, results first showed that the amount of team identification is a reliable determinant of the participants' choice of an identity management strategy. Highly identified spectators were more associated with engaging themselves in ingroup-protective behaviors (i.e., blasting and boosting) than spectators low in team identification who, in contrast, privileged distancing strategies (i.e., CORFing). Moreover, results revealed that participant's gender moderates the link between ingroup identification and CORFing strategy, and that negative mood mediates the ingroup identification-blasting strategy relationship. Theoretical implications of these moderating and mediating effects are then discussed.
Communication & Sport
This study is interested in what sources of team identity formation are related to self-categorization as a sport team fan and the strength of that team identification, and what affective and psychological outcomes become salient in spectatorship scenarios. Participants were administered self- report instruments previously designed to measure team identity formation and psychological effects, then given cognitive tasks adapted from a previous study (Markus, 1977). Participants were required to return to the lab to watch highlights and lowlights of the attending football team’s season. These videos were recorded and coded for affective responses. Because previous evidence supports connections between identity formation, self-categorization/strength of identity, psychological effects, and affective responses, a generalized latent variable model was estimated. The model fit the data, exposing a mediated relationship. This study extends upon previous research by isolating specific aspects of team identity formation that differentially influence affective and communicative responses, especially when mediated by sport team identification. Findings also support the assertion that identity is related to the value and emotional attachment placed on a group membership.
Psychology, 2011
In this paper we analyze identity in a soccer team using a discursive perspective, in which individual psychological functioning is considered to be built in and through social interactions within groups. Analysis is based on naturally-occurring interactions that were audio recorded during technical meetings before and after the match. The data were collected within an ethnographic investigation of an Italian soccer team carried out over a two-month period. The results show that the team's members made rhetorical use of a complex repertoire of their own and others' social identities, and that two main variables influenced the use of social identity markers: a) the role of the speakers (in particular the "power" role of the coach); b) the result of the match around which the interactive discourse revolved. Against this background, we discuss how narratives and identity positionings were used to achieve specific goals and to perform specific actions, such as the planning of future matches and the interpretation of victories and defeats.
Impact of identity on anxiety in athletes
The aim of this study was to research into the interconnection of an athlete's identity and his/her state and trait anxiety. There were 410 athletes included. 67.4% of them were male athletes and 30% were female athletes. The sample included athletes of different quality classes (world class, international class, national class, perspective class, youngster class and non-categorized athletes). The Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS) (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993) and STAI-X1 and STAI-X2 (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970) were applied. It was found that there is a similar interconnection between athletic identity and both types of anxiety. The highest relative impact on both the state and trait anxiety had a negative af-fectivity as a factor of sport identity, followed by world class categorization (in comparison to other classes). Those athletes with a higher negative affectivity and world-class athletes have a higher level of both trait and state anxiety than ...
Athletic identity and its relationship to sport participation levels
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 2006
This study looked at the relationship between athletic identity and three levels of sport participation (elite, recreational, non-participation). Athletic identity was measured using the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS) with participants being compared on the total AIMS score and scores on its three factors (social identity, exclusivity, negative affectivity). Results indicated that the male non-participation group scored lower on all three factors and the total AIMS when compared to the two athlete groups. The male elite and recreational groups did not differ on exclusivity and negative affectivity but did differ on the total AIMS and social identity, with elite scoring higher than recreational. For female participants, the non-participation group again scored lower on all three factors and the total AIMS when compared to the two athlete groups. The female elite and recreational groups did not differ on negative affectivity but did differ on the total AIMS, social identity, and exclusivity, with elite scoring higher than recreational. Findings suggest that to assume sport is only important to elite athletes ignores the role that sport may play for less talented sport participants. Whilst not seeing themselves as athletes per se, it is suggested that participation in sport may still impact upon the self-perceptions of recreational sport participants. Therefore, threats to participation may result in similar negative consequences for both elite athletes and recreational sport participants.
Mega-sport events such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Football World Cup and the Olympics are occasions when winning and losing create intense emotions in participants and observers. The wealth of existing theoretical and empirical material produced by social and psychological researchers on these topics might appear to reduce the potential for qualitative researchers to contribute to and even lead further research efforts. This paper introduces three areas in which qualitative psychology can contribute to understanding events during the 2012 Olympic games and their impact: individual pride and related emotions experienced by elite athletic performers; explorations of the diverse forms of viewer impact and possibilities for group-based emotion; and instances of collective emotion (e.g., such as widespread pride, patriotism and nationalism in the host nation). Examples of projects that could be conducted before, during and after the Olympics are provided. An overarching framework is presented for qualitative research that engages with and critiques relevant quantitative research findings, establishes links to existing qualitative research results, and is reflexive about issues such as methodological plurality.