Flemington Ashley, Loughead Todd M, Desrosiers Marie
Department of Kinesiology, Sport Psychology and Physical Activity Research Collaborative (SPPARC), University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2023 Feb 23;14:1050385. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1050385. eCollection 2023.
The study of athlete leadership has gained momentum over the past 15 years and is recognized as a vital component of team performance. Specifically, athlete leadership has been most studied with regards to its impact on the outcome of cohesion. As a result, a current gap in this area of research is the analysis of attribute data, such as tenure and self-reported athlete leadership, and how this attribute data is related to outcomes, such as cohesion. However, much of current research examining this relationship has utilized traditional statistical methods, limiting interpretation of data because team members are inherently interdependent. One approach that considers the interdependence of team members is social network analysis (SNA). SNA facilitates the study of social structures within networks of people, such as a sports team, as well as individual attributes influencing or being influenced by the network. The present study used SNA to examine athlete leadership and cohesion within a sports team of 22 female professional hockey players. Participants self-reported tenure, completed a self-rated athlete leadership questionnaire, and rated each of their team members on network variables of athlete leadership and cohesion. The results showed that high network density and low degree centralization was found for both athlete leadership and cohesion networks, with high indegree centralities for each team member. Further, a strong correlation was found between the athlete leadership and cohesion networks ( < 0.001), indicating a positive relationship between the athlete leadership ties and the cohesion ties. Lastly, significant correlations were found between self-rated athlete leadership and the networks of athlete leadership and cohesion. Together these data suggest that a cohesive team shares leadership responsibilities with many ties between teammates.
在过去15年里，对运动员领导力的研究势头渐强，并被视为团队表现的一个重要组成部分。具体而言，关于运动员领导力，人们对其对凝聚力结果的影响研究最多。因此，该研究领域目前的一个空白是对属性数据的分析，比如任期和自我报告的运动员领导力，以及这种属性数据与诸如凝聚力等结果之间的关系。然而，目前许多研究这种关系的研究都采用了传统统计方法，由于团队成员本质上是相互依存的，这限制了对数据的解读。一种考虑团队成员相互依存性的方法是社会网络分析（SNA）。SNA有助于研究人际网络中的社会结构，比如运动队，以及影响网络或受网络影响的个体属性。本研究使用SNA来考察一支由22名职业女子曲棍球运动员组成的运动队中的运动员领导力和凝聚力。参与者自我报告任期，完成一份自我评定的运动员领导力问卷，并就运动员领导力和凝聚力的网络变量对其每个团队成员进行评分。结果显示，运动员领导力网络和凝聚力网络均呈现出高网络密度和低程度中心性，每个团队成员的入度中心性都很高。此外，还发现运动员领导力网络和凝聚力网络之间存在很强的相关性（<0.001），表明运动员领导力关系和凝聚力关系之间存在正相关。最后，自我评定的运动员领导力与运动员领导力网络和凝聚力网络之间存在显著相关性。这些数据共同表明，一个有凝聚力的团队会分担领导责任，队友之间有许多联系。
