Grégoire Bosselut

Informal roles on sport teams

Informal roles evolve as a result of the interactions that take place among members of a group. To date, limited research has focused on these types of roles in sport. The objectives of the present study were three-fold. The first objective was to identify and describe informal roles in a sport setting, as determined by a content analysis of Sports Illustrated magazine. Initial support was found for 10 informal roles and input from an expert in group dynamics and 10 team sport athletes contributed two additional roles. The second objective was to examine the context in which these informal roles were described. It was found that the informal roles were discussed in reference to individual (e.g., satisfaction) and group (e.g., cohesion) contexts. The final objective was to query athletes regarding the validity, comprehensiveness, and utility of the identified roles. On average, three informal roles were perceived as having a detrimental effect to team functioning while nine were perceived as beneficial for sport teams.

Coaches’ Perspectives of a Negative Informal Role: The ‘Cancer’ within Sport Teams

Roles are the pattern of behaviors expected of individuals in a given social situation. The general purpose of the present study was to gain an understanding of the negative informal role of the cancer (i.e., an athlete who expresses negative emotions that spread destructively throughout a team) within sport groups. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Canadian intercollegiate coaches to determine perceptions of the characteristics, emergence, consequences, and management of the cancer. Verification interviews supported the classification and interpretation of information obtained from the initial data collection. The responses from the coaches demonstrate the importance of the cancer in relation to group functioning and contribute to our understanding theoretically and also in relation to practice.