Determinants of evaluation of team performance

Abstract.— The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting the evaluation of the achievement behavior of a group . Subjects were asked to play the role of team members who have to convey their feedback to the whole team right after the performance. 214 subjects (males and females, high and low achievers) evaluated the achievement behavior of a group, a sports team. They were given knowledge of the group's performance outcomes (5 outcomes from clear win to clear loss), of the group's ability (yes or no) and of the effort (yes or no) expended by the group members. These factors yielded the 20 situations judged by each subject. In addition, half of the subjects evaluated a team performing under conditions of high competition and half under conditions of low competition. The results revealed that effort and outcome form major determinants of achievement judgments, but effects of these determinants depend on the joint influences of effort, outcome and ability. Need for achievement level of subjects and the type of situation did not affect achievement judgments. Overall, females were more rewarding among themselves than males in their own groups.     

Conceptual and methodological problems in the analysis of self-serving causal attributions of success and failure

The present article examined conceptual and methodological foundations of testing the self-serving hypothesis of causal attributions. This analysis revealed a startling fact that neither major reviews (by Bradley, Miller & Ross; Snyder et al.; Weary & Arkin; and Zuckerman) nor other reports have provided a clear and specific definition of the self-serving attributions. Furthermore, methodological defects exist because of such fundamental errors as the use of between-subjects designs, instead of within-subjects designs, in testing the hypothesis. Therefore, the reported experiments simply reflect the researchers' attempts to interpret subjects' attributions as self-serving or non-self-serving. To better understand the nature and scope of self-serving motives in causal attributions, it is essential (1) to take into account attributors' personal definitions of self-serving attributions, (2) to relate the nonreciprocal attributions to social/cultural values about self-serving behaviors, and (3) to determine the role of intentions in causal attributions of success and failure.     

Nascent body ego: Metapsychological and neurophysiological aspects

For Freud, body ego was the organizing basis of the structural theory. He defi ned it as a psychic projection of the body surface. Isakower's and Lewin's classical fi ndings suggest that the body surface experiences of nursing provide the infant with sensory-affective stimulation that initiates a projection of sensory processes towards the psychic realm. During nursing, somato-sensory, gustatory and olfactory modalities merge with a primitive somatic affect of satiation, whereas auditory modality is involved more indirectly and visual contact more gradually. Repeated regularly, such nascent experiences are likely to play a part in the organization of the primitive protosymbolic mental experience. In support of this hypothesis, the authors review fi ndings from a neurophysiological study of infants before, during and after nursing. Nursing is associated with a signifi cant amplitude change in the newborn electroencephalogram (EEG), which wanes before the age of 3 months, and is transformed at the age of 6 months into rhythmic 3-5 Hz hedonic θ-activity. Sucking requires active physiological work, which is shown in a regular rise in heart rate. The hypothesis of a sensory-affective organization of the nascent body ego, enhanced by nursing and active sucking, seems concordant with neurophysiological phenomena related to nursing.     

Effects of team outcome on children's self-perception: Little League baseball

Abstract.— To determine how children use various attributional categories in making judgments about themselves as a function of team performance outcomes, answers were sought to the questions of how invariant children's perceptions of their characteristics are, and how they expect social agents to judge them under the various outcome conditions of team performance. Subjects were 300 Little League baseball players. Team failure did not decrease the players' judgments of their own internal qualities (ability and effort) but did decrease their judgments of those of the team. In addition, the players judged themselves and expected social agents (coach and spectators) to judge them as being unlucky and having a difficult task following team failure. Theoretical implications of the results were discussed.     

Experience-related factors as determinants of leisure satisfaction

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effects on leisure satisfaction of factors related and unrelated to a leisure experience. The first study showed that subjects' sex and educational level were not significantly related to leisure satisfaction which was measured without regard to any particular explicit leisure experience. However, when the measures of leisure satisfaction were taken in close temporal proximity to a leisure experience (the second study), two significant interaction effects were obtained. The one involving sex and outcome indicated that the experience of a basketball game itself, regardless of its outcome, increased males' leisure satisfaction, whereas females' leisure satisfaction was outcome-dependent. The interaction of outcome and competitiveness revealed that leisure satisfaction was higher for the competitive than recreational players before the game, with this difference enlarging after winning and especially after losing. Theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed.     

Effects of outcome feedback on perception of dispositional and situational control in motor skill performance

This experiment investigated the effects of outcome feedback and the type of situation on perception of dispositional and situational control over motor skill performance. The experimental design was a 2 × 2 × 2 (type of situation × past outcome × present outcome) factorial. The subject competed with an opponent (a confederate) on ten pretest and ten test trials of a motor maze task. The results showed that both past and present success enhanced perception of dispositional control in terms of personal ability whereas failure (past and present) facilitated perception of situational control in terms of the opponent's ability. The type of situation had negligible influence on the subject's control perception of their motor performance. The results were viewed as having important implications for studying the effects of social reinforcement and outcome feedback on motor performance and thus for understanding why outcome feedback sometimes increases and sometimes decreases motor performance.