You are the Weakest Link, Goodbye (to Physical Inactivity!): A Comment on Irwin et al.

Over the past two decades there has been a steady growth ofresearch examining the capacity of groups as a means offacilitating improved physical activity behaviors amongindividuals. These studies have involved a diverse range ofpopulations including young children, older adults, pre- andpost natal women, ethnic minorities, to name but a few [1].The basis for this research stems from the pioneering workof those such as Lewin [2], Cartwright and Zander [3], and,more recently, scholars such as Carron and Spink [4]—whoall suggested that an individual is invariably changed whens/he joins a group.The study by Irwin and colleagues [5] provides an inter-esting and unique example of how group dynamics princi-ples can be harnessed to influence individual behavior, inthis case in relation to improved motivation during aerobicexercise. The use of a conjunctive task facilitated by theimplementation of a group goal (i.e., team score) is anelegant approach to understanding individual motivation ina co-active exercise setting. These laboratory-based findingsalign with the outcomes of a number of other studies thathave used group-dynamics-based approaches in applied set-tings [1] and provide fodder for a number of potential futurestudies to expand upon and explain these findings.What is it about being in a partnership, where yourpartner is better than you, that makes you strive to becomebetter rather than makes you feel tired of trying to keep up?It is possible that commitment to the group goal and confi-dence in one’s teammate facilitates personal motivation. TheIrwin et al. study provides some support for the formerbeing possible. The performance of participants in the con-junctive condition improved throughout the course of thestudy and was at its highest during the last session. Supportfor the idea that performance could be improved throughconfidence in a teammate’s ability in achieving a group goalcan be found in Dunlop and colleagues’ [6] study where aparticipant’s confidence in her/his partner was related toimprovements in objective measures of physical activity.The question of the maintenance of this type of effect iscritical if it is intended to be utilized as part of a physicalactivity promotion intervention. The six (60-min) sessionsin the Irwin et al. study took place over a 4-week period. Itwould be interesting to examine the effects of conjunctivetasks, and in particular the Kohler effect, within smallgroups (dyads) over a much longer period of time. Interest-ingly, in previous research in this area, Lount and colleagues[7] found that the Kohler effect was more robust when theparticipant worked with different partners when comparedto those who worked with the same partner across multiplesessions. It would be interesting to see what might happen ifa participant could continually be matched with partnerswith increased levels of ability. In that way the potentialdemotivation of always being the weakest link in a giventeam (or dyad) could be avoided by providing the partici-pant with perceptions of performance success (e.g., becom-ing better than previous team members).We were also struck by the potential of moving this typeof strategy into an applied context where both the superiorand inferior individuals were participants in the study.