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Cohesion – A general overview
Within sport, groups and teams are visible at any level whether they are competitive, managerial or spectators. ... This is often measured and discussed using terms such as team work, chemistry and team/group cohesion. The level of cohesion within a team is reflected in their togetherness and ability to stand united and has been defined simply by Carron (1998) as “a dynamic process that is reflected in the tendency of a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of member affective needs.” Cohesion can be split into two basic dimensions: Task cohesion and Social cohesion. Weinberg and Gould (1999) address task cohesion as the degree to which members work together to achieve common goals, i. ... They view social cohesion as to degree to which members of a group like each other or interact with each other. ...
In team sports it is generally assumed that a positive relationship exists between cohesion levels and performance, and they have been proposed to be 83% positive (Widmeyer et al, 1993). The aim of this report is to further your understanding of this relationship and factors which influence it.
The Cohesion – Performance Relationship:
When looking at cohesion, authors have been quick to suggest that a higher level of cohesion leads to a more advantaged performance (Widmeyer 1993). Although, the direction of causality approach, which refers to whether cohesion leads to performance success or performance success leads to cohesion could discount all previous research. ... In general, a positive relationship has been found to exist for interactive tasks but with performance having a stronger effect on cohesion than cohesion does on performance, as concluded by Carron (1998) who said “success provided higher cohesion rather than cohesion providing success. ...
If a team were to win a match there task cohesion would increase and they would be more likely to talk about it afterwards and socialise more, thus, also increasing their social cohesiveness. This social cohesion is needed as a starter to gain common goals and aims in order to increase task cohesion even though, to begin with, a socially cohesive team may not always perform well. However, some teams may win despite having a clear lack of cohesion. For example, some teams may have battles between players and internal conflict but still perform well. These teams have extremely high levels of task cohesion and a strong desire to win and be the best. ...
It is clear then that either direction is plausible, cohesion can energise members towards successful task completion and excellent performance can make members feel better about the group.
The causality approach could remain to be a forever changing perspective with its resolve being the ultimate answer to any cohesion performance linkage.
Approximate Word count = 2233
Approximate Pages = 8.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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