Abstract
Individual members of a team may have a sense of uncertainty as to how they should behave in front of their teammates (Shaw, 1981). This ambiguity is minimized when group norms are realized through the interaction and communication with other team members (Carron et al., 2005). Athlete leaders are members of a team who can help convey the group's norms (Crozier et al., 2010). The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of athlete leadership on the strength of team norms. The participants were 104 athletes from 10 competitive sport teams. Each participant completed the Team Norm Questionnaire (Carron et al., 1999), which assessed team norms in four different contexts: competition, practice, off-season, and team social situations. The results showed that the strongest norms were endorsed within the context of competition, while the weakest norms were found in the context of the off-season. Further, a single factor repeated measures analysis demonstrated a significant difference between the four contexts (F(3, 99) = 11.33, p< .001; ?2 = 0.74). Post hoc analyses showed that the strength of the competition and practice norms were significantly greater than the strength of the norms for the off-season and team social situations. The results are discussed in relation to how athlete leaders impact team norms in the sporting environment.
