Abstract
Why might young athletes work hard in their team setting? From a group perspective, previous studies have linked individual effort to both team unity (Ulvick & Spink, 2014) and the perception that others on the team are working hard (descriptive norms; Spink et al., 2013). As those findings came from independent, non-experimental studies, the purpose of the current study was to explore how cohesion and descriptive norms would influence self-reported athlete effort when they were examined together using a between-subjects experimental design. Fifty-five female volleyball players (M=15.4 years, SD=.6) were randomly assigned to read one of four vignettes about a team varying in cohesion (high vs. low) and descriptive norms for teammate effort (high vs. low). Participants then rated how hard they would work if they were a member of the described team. Results from an ANOVA indicated that reported effort differed across the four conditions, F(3, 48)=3.89, p=.01, ?p2=.20. Post hoc analyses revealed main effects for both team constructs. Participants who read about a team described as high in cohesion reported that they would work harder than those whose team was described as low in cohesion (p=.009, Cohen's d=.72). Participants' reported effort scores also were higher for those who read about most players on the team working hard as compared to few players working hard (p=.05, Cohen's d=.49). In addition to supporting previous independent relationships, these findings provide initial evidence that, when considered together, perceptions about team unity and teammate effort both contribute to young athletes' self-reported effort levels.Acknowledgments: This research was supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship-Doctoral and a SSHRC/Sport Canada Sport Participation Research Initiative grant to the first author.