Seeing the “we” in “me” sports: The need to consider individual sport team environments.

Abstract

Most individual sport settings involve groups, as athletes often train in a team environment even though they compete individually and often in opposition to their teammates. Despite the pervasiveness of individual sport, group dynamics research has almost exclusively investigated team sports because team members rely on one another during the competitive group task. However, the reliance on task interdependence to dichotomize sport environments into one of two categories (i.e., team or individual) overlooks further differences in how members rely on each other (e.g., interdependence for individual and group-level outcomes or resources). The purpose of this article is to promote the investigation of group dynamics and social influence in individual sport by proposing a typology that distinguishes types of sport group environments according to levels of structural interdependence. This typology identifies six distinct sport team types and leads to a number of relevant theoretical and practice-based propositions. This work is a call for increased group dynamics research involving individual sport environments that acknowledges the multiple forms of interdependence that are present both in the group structure and the perceptions held by athletes.

Exploring the Nature of Interpersonal Influence in Elite Individual Sport Teams

“…If this is the case, athletes' responses were in agreement with social interdependence theory (Johnson & Johnson, 2005), which suggests that the structure of group members' reliance on one another (e.g., group outcomes) will guide their interactions and partially determine the influence one individual has on another. Given that group outcomes are present in some individual sports and not in others, these results support the proposition that group outcomes are an important distinguishing feature for sport types (cf., Evans et al, 2012).…”

“…Correspondingly, Evans, Eys, and Bruner (2012) suggested that the structure of interdependencies relating sport group members will guide the types of interactions between them. For that reason, the authors formed four distinct individual sport team types based on interdependence structures: (a) collective (e.g., a cross country running team where all participants compete in one event and have a collective goal), (b) cooperative (e.g., a track and field team where all participants may not compete in the same event, but still have a collective goal), (c) contrient (e.g., a cross country skiing team, where all participants compete in the same events, but where there is no formal team goal), and (d) independent (e.g., a wrestling team where participants compete in different weight classes and there is no formal team goal).…”

Comparing self-reported leisure-time physical activity, subjective health, and life satisfaction among youth soccer players and adolescents in a reference sample

“…One of the dynamic properties that appears to distinguish sport activities is the degree of interdependency required among members for the performance of a task (Evans, Eys, & Bruner, 2012). Furthermore, the categories of team and individual sports are conceptually distinguished based on interdependency, with team sports conceptually requiring a higher degree of collaboration and social interaction.…”

Cliques in Sport: Perceptions of Intercollegiate Athletes

“…One of those relates to the prevalence of groups in sport. To be sure, most sports involve the use of groups whether in competition or during training-even individual sport athletes typically practice and compete alongside teammates (e.g., Evans, Eys, & Bruner, 2012). Similarly, although athletic ability is paramount for team success, the dynamics within the team have been found to be of equal consequence (e.g., Carron, Martin, & Loughead, 2012).…”