1. leadership behavior and membership duration
Relationship between baseball players’ team cohesiveness,
leadership behavior and membership duration
Yoshiaki Imai
Keio University
Introduction
Team cohesiveness or cohesion is an important determinant of athletic performance in interactive sports
(Filho, Dobersek, Gershgoren, Becker, and
Tenenbaum, 2014).
What are the determinants of team cohesiveness in university baseball teams?
Possible predictors of team cohesiveness
(a) Leadership behavior of captains
(Vincer and Loughead, 2010)
(b) Big Five personalities of captains
(Four personalities except neuroticism)
(c) Membership duration of players
(d) Total amount of team practice including self-practice of players
Results
As the intra-correlation coefficient of team cohesiveness was .330 (F (10, 146) = 7.949, p < .0001), we analyzed the data using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), HAD (ver. 15) developed by Shimizu (2016).
Discussion
Baseball players who reported
(a) high leadership behavior,
(b) high openness to experience and conscientiousness of their ex-captains, and
(c) long membership duration
perceived high team cohesiveness.
(d) The number of total hours of team practice also positively influenced team cohesiveness.
Out of all the factors analyzed, leadership
behavior had the highest effect on
cohesiveness.
It suggests that leadership training is beneficial for augmenting cohesiveness of team sport.
As for the Big Five personalities, leaders who respond to team situations creatively and smartly, and are not lazy, loose, and indolent, heighten their teams’ cohesiveness.
It suggests the importance of task-related behavior like conscientiousness and openness to experience rather than relationship-related behavior.
Method
Participants. The participants were 159
male players from 11 medical university
baseball teams surrounding Tokyo. Their
mean age was years (SD = 2.25),
and the number of team members ranged
from 10 to 25.
Measures.
The Team Cohesiveness Scale (Aé, 1986)
(a) Feelings of unity among members
(e.g., “Our team had unified even when we were losing a game.”)
(b) Attachment to their teams
(e.g., “We had been friendly in our team.”)
cf. the Group Integration - Social and Task items developed by Carron, Widmeyer, and Brawley (1985)
The Captains’ Leadership Behavior Scale
(Yoshimura, 2005)
(a) Technical guidance
(e.g., “My ex-captain taught members the knacks and skills proficiently.”)
(b) Pressure for practicing
(e.g., “My ex-captain gave the rough edge of his tongue to the members who were late for practices or were absent without notice.”)
(c) Team leading
(e.g., “My ex-captain had cheered up our team by making a joke when members made
a mistake.”)
(d) Relationship maintenance
(e.g., “My ex-captain had unified our team well.”)
The Big Five Personality Scale (Wada, 1996)
(a) Extraversion
Talkative, close-mouthed*, cheerful, extraverted, gloomy*, unfriendly*
(*: reverse-scored items)
(b) Agreeableness
Clement, kind, generous, honest, hot-tempered*, passionate*
(c) Conscientiousness
Dishonest*, indolent*, lazy*, loose*, happy-go-lucky*,
(d) Openness to Experience
Well-rounded, creative, smart, insightful, progressive, well-planned, unique
(e) Neuroticism
Anxious, vulnerable, prone to worrying, discouraged, nerve-wracking, full of woe
Acknowledgments
The author reanalyzed the data collected by Ms. Hikaru Kawabe whom the author supervised for her graduation thesis at Keio University. The author wishes to thank Ms. Kawabe and all participants of this study.