Team Performance Outcome and the Cohesiveness of Competitive Coacting Groups1

A question often plaguing investigators is why some competitive teams achieve consistently successful-performance outcomes and. why others do not. Obviously, the resources, in terms of skills and abilities, that group members bring to the contest are extremely important. This perceived importance has often led to a neglect of other important de-terminants of team performance outcome, namely group structure and task demands. The concept of group structure refers to patterned regularities in feeling, perceptions, and actions that characterize aspects of the inter-actions between members of a group. The structure of task-oriented groups can be described in terms of patterned regularities among group members in regard to interpersonal attraction for one another,. as well as communication between group members, power relations, and mem-ber perceived contribution to the task. Of these components of group structure only one, interpersonal attraction, has received attention in investigations of sport, primarily as an important force contributing to group- cohesiveness,(Lott and Lott, 19’65). According to- Festinger, Schachter and Back:(1950) group cohesiveness is defined as the re-sultant of all forces influencing members to remain in the group. These forces are dependent upon the relative degree of attractiveness of mem-bers- of the group (social cohesiveness) and activities in which the group engages (task cohesiveness). Since sport performance is volun-tary and generally of high salience to the performer, primary attention has focused upon the contribution of social cohesiveness to team per