An Experimental Examination of the Cohesion-Performance Relationship in an Interactive Team Sport

Abstract

This study experimentally examined the cohesion-performance relationship. Undergraduate male volunteers were randomly assigned to 3-man basketball teams and teams were randomly assigned to receive either a cohesion-producing or a cohesion-reducing manipulation before competing. Level of cohesion and individual as well as team performance variables were assessed prior to and after each game. The manipulation successfully created teams higher and lower in cohesion. The results indicate that cohesion had a negligible impact on team performance. A stronger effect was found for the impact of performance on cohesion with winning teams having higher levels of cohesion than losing teams. These findings are consistent with previous literature and lend experimental support to the conclusion that performance has more impact on cohesion than cohesion has on performance.     

A Search for Systematic Personality Differentiae of the Only Child in Young Adulthood

The effects of the affective relationship between the model and the observer and locus of control on imitative behavior were investigated by exposing 28 boys to their most liked peer and least liked peer on a simple imitative task. Locus of control was determined by the Nowicki-Strickland (6) Locus of Control Scale for Children. More imitative responses were exhibited to the most liked peer than to the least liked peer, and a positive correlation between number of imitative responses and internal locus of control was found. Results were interpreted as indicating the need to control the affective relationship between the model and observer and as supporting Bandura (1) in that imitative behavior is primarily under self-reinforcement control.