Seeing the "We" in "Me" Sports: The Need to Consider Individual Sport Team Environments

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.Keywords: group dynamics, interdependence, typology, sport, exercise, psychology, sport psychologyIndividual sport performances are rarely individual efforts. Individual sport athletes (e.g., running, wrestling, and golf) often spend hundreds or even thousands of hours with teammates in training and competition, and build important interpersonal relationships. For example, after calculating the number of hours spent competing with the amount of time spent training and travelling with teammates, Canadian cross country skier Mariis Kromm claimed, "for every minute I'm on the race course I've spent almost 7 hours with my team" (Kromm, 2009, para. 1). Group dynamics research has largely overlooked individual sport environments in favour of team sports (e.g., soccer) under the expectation that group influence will only exist to the extent that team members interact during competition (Carron & Chelladurai, 1981). Correspondingly, it is unclear whether individual sport environments involve comparable group dynamics processes to those in team sport settings (e.g., Carron, Colman, Wheeler. & Stevens, 2002) or whether group processes are relatively unimportant (e.g., Landers & Lueschen, 1974). This understanding is particularly hampered by the typical dichotomous categorisation of sports as either individual or team in nature. "Individual sport" is an umbrella term encompassing a number of activities in which athletes are not required to integrate with others on a collective competitive group task. However, sports identified as "individual" based on task type may also differ according to a number of higher-order characteristics including (but not limited to) the following: (a) the use of team scores, (b) training that requires the presence of teammates, and (c) identification of distinct leaders and roles. Thus, although individual sport athletes are not interdependent with others on the competitive task, there are a number of additional ways that they may rely on other athletes in a group or team setting (Widmeyer & Williams, 1991). As all sources of interdependence are essential in understanding group interactions and collaboration (Saavedra, Earley, & Van Dyne, 1993), they may be valuable for distinguishing group types.The purpose of this article is to promote the investigation of group dynamics and social influence in individual sport settings by proposing a typology that distinguishes types of sport group environments according to levels of structural interdependence and encouraging research involving interdependence perceptions and structures that determine how group members are likely to impact one another's sport experiences. This review makes a distinct call for greater consideration of group dynamics issues within individual sport and provides a framework to guide such research efforts. …