As with any endeavor, success in sports hinges on teamwork. This often involves a coach and an athlete trying to come up with plans, encourage each other, and overcome obstacles. Unfortunately, this is the common psychology that people who work in groups tend to fall in when it comes to groups coming together. Group polarization is where the members of a group engage in the more extreme views or the more extreme behaviors that emerged in the discussion or interaction as opposed to the original beliefs before the discussion or interaction. When looking at the boundaries of sports teams, group polarization will affect the way decisions are made, how the squad behaves, and the results of the games. This particular blog seeks to illustrate how group polarization influences sports team performance through its astute manifestations.
In sports teams, group polarization occurs in different ways, which in most cases occur in tactical discussions, for instance during training. A case in point is given in this scenario: as players debate over game strategies, slight supporters of the aggressive play style before going into discussion may become aggressive supporters of the play style after the discussion. This shared reinforcement can also result in the team implementing strategies that, at first glance, would look like a step too far or are untried. Likewise, the opposite picture may result: where initial deliberations suggest a negative sentiment in support of a specific course of action, the team may manage to replicate defensiveness or defensiveness in collective action. These changes could have dramatic consequences on the team’s functioning and their preparedness for the contest by affecting every single thing, from the type and nature of the play to the mindset on the field.
Such an instance can also be observed in major competitions and championship runs where the desire to win reinforces the belief already present among group members. At critical junctures, should some of the team members verbalize their fears of losing or being humiliated, it ironically may raise the level of caution in the team as a whole. When players at a site begin to group, there is a tendency to sulk and puff targeting action without keeping players on the edge. On the other hand, in the championship, where players feel omnipotent, engagement in discussion leads the risk-taking tendency to a pathological level because of excessive self-appraisal.
In relation to the issue disturbance posed by group polarization, there is some particular strategy that would allow teams to engage and consider broader points of view in their discussions. Another measure is that coaches can make players feel assured of giving opposing views without being ostracized. Thus, for example, where there is slow pace in decision making, when devising tactics or selecting a strategy, the risk may be underappreciated. . Furthermore, this organizational decision approach can assist the athletes in addressing issues from various viewpoints and preventing go away where team strategies become too polarized or overly risky.
To sum up, although it is fundamental for teams in sports contexts to operate as fans of the game and its practitioners, acknowledging group polarization is equally important to any coach and even the players themselves. Teams would then purposely attempt to moderate or balance the strategies they choose to avoid these extremes, whether they come from risky discussions or banish discussions at all. The bottom line is that creating a safe environment with open in-house communication and equal participation addresses polarization concerns and leads to better decision-making, hence better performance on the pitch.
Isenberg, D. J. & Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. (1986). Group Polarization: A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis. In Journal of Personally and Social Psychology (Vol. 50, Issue 6, pp. 1141–1142) [Journal-article]. American Psychological Association, Inc.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. In SAGE Publications, Inc. eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071800591.