Specificity of partner feedback as moderator of group motivation gains in Olympic swimmers

Abstract

Article Group work often is not as effective and motivating as people think (e.g., Paulus, Dzindolet, Poletes, & Camacho, 1993). Indeed, previous psychological research primarily investigated motivation losses in teams (i.e., reductions in motivation in group as compared to individual work; see Karau & Williams, 1993, for a review). In recent years, however, the situation is changing with studies showing also higher effort in group versus individual performance settings (i.e., motivation gains

No Myth far and wide:

“…Concerning potential moderators of these findings, we have initial evidence that type of swimming relay (e.g., freestyle vs. medley relays) may act as a moderator (i.e., we found no effort gains in medley relays, Hüffmeier et al, 2013). We have more reliable evidence that (i) the swimmers' medal chances in the relay and (ii) the relative valence of the obtainable group outcomes may moderate these findings in the following way: Swimmers without chances to win a medal in the relay competition and swimmers competing for less attractive outcomes in the relay than in the individual competition did not exhibit effort gains in groups (Hüffmeier et al, 2017;.…”

“…At the fourth position, we again consistently found effort gains. These gains were more pronounced than at the prior positions in all but one study (Hüffmeier et al, 2013; see Table 2), but they were still small in size.…”

“…Fourth, we either included all data that was available at the time of a study (e.g., Study 1 in Hüffmeier et al, 2017;Hüffmeier et al, 2013; or we conducted a power analysis to determine the necessary sample size to detect the expected effects (Study 2 in Hüffmeier et al, 2017). Fifth, in accordance with our finding that indispensability perceptions increase across the positions of the relay (Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2011), we expected a parallel increase in effort across the relay.…”

“…Our article (Hüffmeier et al, 2012) is part of a series of published (Hüffmeier et al, 2017;Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2011;Hüffmeier, Kanthak, & Hertel, 2013) and currently not yet published studies (Schleu, Mojzisch, & Hüffmeier, 2018). They build on a long research tradition in (social) psychology that investigated-mostly in laboratory experiments-how working as part of a group affects the members' motivation and performance (see Karau & Williams, 1993;Weber & Hertel, 2007, for overviews).…”

“…Second, with one exception (Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2011), we made sure that the included data came from comparable stages in both competitions (e.g., final races from both the individual and relay competitions). Third, in most studies, we only included a swimmer if his/her reaction times from both competitions were available (Hüffmeier et al, 2013(Hüffmeier et al, , 2012Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2011). As an alternative approach, we conducted a pilot study to derive estimates of the reactiontime advantage separately for each relay position (Hüffmeier et al, 2017; see also Table 1).…”