An examination of psychological momentum in alpine ski racing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate psychological momentum (PM) in giant slalom (GS) alpine ski racing. PM is defined by Adler (1981) as a bidirectional concept, affecting the probability of winning or losing as a function of the preceding event. Koehler and Conley (1993) suggested that PM may only exist in tasks involving a large psychological component, high level of arousal and expert performance. Alpine ski racing fits this description. Although PM is a term commonly heard in sport settings, previous research has either failed to find a relationship between PM and winning (Koehler & Vergin, 2000) or to control for ability (Gayton and Very, 1993; Vergin 2000). Based on the Taylor & Demick model (1994), it was hypothesized that racers would gain positive momentum if they placed above their season average ranking on the first run (R1) and above on their second (R2). The opposite was expected to occur when racers placed below their average on R1 (i.e., negative momentum). International Ski Federation (FIS) archival race data of the top-thirty male and female racers (FIS Points list) in the 2006 – 2007 season were used in the analysis, to control for ability. Pearson correlations and a chi-squared test were used to test both hypotheses; all results were insignificant (? = .05). Possible reasons for insignificant results may include positive inhibition (Vergin, 2000) and regression to the mean. Based on these results the authors suggested that PM is a cognitive illusion that is accepted due to a memory bias resulting in a tendency for individuals to remember streaks in sport.