Norman Triplett’s ‘co-action’ studies are the source of evidence for the first assumption. Triplett suggested that the mere presence of another individual is psychologically stimulating and promotes enhanced performance. One of the first ever social psychological experiments was constructed to test Triplett’s hypothesis. The hypothesis turned out to be correct as it showed children that were working in pairs produced a better performance than individual children. To further prove his hypothesis, results of a similar nature have been reproduced in a variety of settings and even with animals. Co-action occurs usually in an intense environment such as motor sport. The result is that the man works for himself rather than for the benefit of the team, but his objective becomes clearly to beat the other man. Both competitors are aware of this so the mere presence of the other is enough of a trigger to promote intense competition.
The second assumption concerns the Fundamental Attribution Error, as the article says, “…the slower driver needing to salvage his bruised ego begins to find fault with his equipment.” The driver (in this case Alain Prost) is displaying self-serving attributional bias.
According to Jones and Nisbett (1974) this is perfectly normal and is a part of human nature for people to console themselves in this way and blame something external, this in essence protects our self esteem and confidence. However this only happens with ourselves and we do not apply the same theory with other people and therefore insinuate that they aren’t capable or competent enough and in this way take the situation at face value rather than give them the benefit of the doubt.
The final assumption is based on the studies of Sheriff et al. The assumption is that within sport there is inevitably a prize and with it comes fame and of course money. Naturally this goal is desired by all competitors in the same field or even within the team ,so the potential for hostility is therefore greatly increased. The Robber’s Cave experiment of 1961 is an example of conflict between two parties with the same goal where two male groups of 11 participated in a number of scout activities such as pitching tents, treasure hunting etc. Towards the end of the first week a competitive streak had emerged, possibly a by-product of their needs to keep pace with one another. A grand tournament was set up which the ‘Eagles’ won, but later on the ‘Rattler’s’ came and stole the prizes that the ‘Eagles’ had won.
The article refers to the hostility between the two drivers who went to great lengths to win the World Drivers Championship (eg dangerously ramming each other off the track). It could be argued that a silent hatred developed for the other driver as it did between the Rattler’s and the Eagles.
A suggestion to deal with the competitive streaks shown by way of ‘co-action’ could be to introduce a reward scheme. Barbara Woods’ ‘Applying Psychology to Sport’ book illustrates that if behaviour is rewarded then it is more likely to be repeated. Rewards through way of reinforcment could be implemented and could strengthen behaviour and turn out a better performance, certain positive phrases such as ‘keep it up’ , ‘excellent’ , ‘well done’ or gestures such as a ‘thumbs up’ could be used. Such schemes would be ideal or fitting as the performer would know that they had performed to the best of their ability leaving a feeling of self satisfaction.
A suggestion to deal with the Fundamental Attribution Error or self serving attributional bias would be to promote the use of imagery or visualisation within the mind of the athlete is psycho-therapy sessions.
This would involve telling the driver to visualise what it would be like winning the race and reaping the rewards, the adulation of adoring fans and so on. The driver could be told to develop his imagery skills when without distractions and try and build a clear target within the mind set and how to achieve these targets in a step by step process by using mental components. This would provide a welcome distraction from the paranoia exhibited by the driver and if done right provide optimum performance from him.
A possible way to deal with ‘internal’ silent or even open hatred within a team could be through the concept of attributional retraining.
This could possibly be done with the team principal telling his drivers that success should be viewed as a positive and stable factor due to him (the driver) ,without such elements of luck creeping in to it, and his ability. The weaker driver could be taught that losing was due to something unstable or circumstances outside of his control. The ‘retraining’ methods would encourage the performer to accept responsibility for performance and not see himself as a failure thus maintaining self esteem and not promote a silent hatred of the other because of the new ‘lessons’ they have learnt.
