Half-Time Strategies to Enhance Second-Half Performance in Team-Sports Players: A Review and Recommendations

The competitive demands of numerous intermittent team sports require that two consecutive periods of play are separated by a half-time break. Typically, half-time allows players to: return to the changing rooms, temporarily relax from the cognitive demands of the first half of match-play, rehydrate, re-fuel, attend to injury or equipment concerns, and to receive tactical instruction and coach feedback in preparation for the second half. These passive practices have been associated with physiological changes which impair physical and cognitive performance in the initial stages of the second half. An increased risk of injury has also been observed following half-time. On the day of competition, modification of half-time practices may therefore provide Sports Scientists and Strength and Conditioning Coaches with an opportunity to optimise second half performance. An overview of strategies that may benefit team sports athletes is presented; specifically, the efficacy of: heat maintenance strategies (including passive and active methods), hormonal priming (through video feedback), post-activation potentiation, and modified hydro-nutritional practices are discussed. A theoretical model of applying these strategies in a manner that compliments current practice is also presented

Brokering Trust to Enhance Leadership: A Self-Monitoring Approach to Leadership Emergence

What kind of person is likely to emerge as an informal leader in the workplace? Experimental research shows that high self-monitors—who tend to adjust their attitudes and behaviors to the demands of different situations—emerge as informal leaders in temporary groups. By contrast, low self-monitors—who tend to be true to themselves in terms of consistency in attitudes and behaviors across different situations—are less likely to emerge as leaders. But this prior research does not address the criticism that the emergence of high self-monitors as leaders represents ephemeral impression management in the context of laboratory experiments. To address this issue, we collected and analyzed data from a 116-member high-technology firm. Our results show that self-monitoring is related not only to leadership emergence, but also to the provision of advice to co-workers. Further, people who occupied brokerage positions (being trusted by those who did not trust each other) tended to be seen as leaders if they were high rather than low self-monitors. From these results, we build a picture of the high self-monitoring emergent leader as someone who notices problems and ameliorates them through the provision of advice and the brokerage of relationships across social divides. The occupation of a structurally advantageous position may well be more advantageous for some (i.e., high self-monitors) relative to others (i.e., low self-monitors)

Consumer Reactions to Rival Failure: Examining Glory Out of Reflected Failure

This chapter focuses on the Glory Out of Reflected Failure (GORFing) phenomenon and its relationships regarding team identification, rival perceptions, and favorite team behavior intentions. A sample of 555 sport fans provides responses regarding their team identification, the perceptions of rival teams, their likelihood to experience GORFing, and behavioral intentions toward the favorite team when their rival loses to a third, neutral team. Structural model results showed that rival perceptions are associated with the likelihood of experiencing GORFing, which in turn was associated with behavioral intentions following a rival team’s loss to a comparable team, and mediated the relationship between rival perceptions and behavioral intentions. Contributions and implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed, and avenues for future study are introduced

Impact of cognitive style on group decision and negotiation

Numerous studies on group decision and negotiation have focused on the influence of the cognitive style of decision makers. Using number of instruments such as Kirton Adaption Innovation (KAI), Cognitive Style Index (CSI), Kolb Learning Style Inventory (KLS), Belbin team role self‐perception inventory, or the well-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), studies explore relationships between different dimensions of the personality traits of the individuals and the performance of group decisions. The results are very heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory, depending in particular on the decision contexts explored (strategic decision or not, etc.) and the type of measurement and proxy used to identify the cognitive style. When cognitive diversity is the variable used in these researches, it is no longer the influence of an individual cognitive style on the decision that becomes the object of study but the fact that several styles are represented among the members of a group of decision makers. Looking for an integrative group of decision makers, as it is finally proposed in this chapter through a cognitive mapping-based method, is then a way to increase group decision performance