Effects of antisocial behaviour on opponent's anger, attention, and performance.

Sledging, which is verbal antisocial behaviour in sport, aims to impair an opponent's performance. Previously, variations in performance have been attributed to changes in emotion and cognition. To improve our understanding of sledging, the current experiment examined the effects of verbal antisocial behaviour on anger, attention and performance. Participants performed a competitive basketball free-throw shooting task under insult (verbal behaviour designed to offend and upset the performer), distraction (verbal behaviour designed to draw attention away from the task), or control (neutral verbal behaviour) conditions. Performance was assessed by the number of successful baskets and a points-based scoring system, while anger and attention were measured post-task. The insult condition provoked more anger than the control and distraction conditions, whereas the insult and distraction conditions increased distraction and reduced self-focus compared to the control condition. Although verbal antisocial behaviour had no overall direct effect on performance, mediation analysis showed that anger indirectly impaired performance via distraction. Implications for the antisocial behaviour-performance relationship are discussed.

The Effects of Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors on Emotion, Attention, and Performance During a Competitive Basketball Task.

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether prosocial and antisocial teammate behaviors affect emotions (i.e., happiness, anxiety, anger), attention, and performance. Undergraduate sport and exercise science students (N = 102) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: prosocial behavior, antisocial behavior, and control. They performed a basketball free-throw shooting task for 2 min in baseline and experimental phases and completed measures of emotions and attention. Free-throw shooting performance was also recorded. A series of analyses of covariances controlling for baseline scores showed that the prosocial group reported more happiness than the antisocial and control groups. The antisocial group reported more anxiety than the prosocial group and more anger and lower attention than the other 2 groups. The prosocial and antisocial groups performed better than the control group. These findings suggest that prosocial and antisocial teammate behaviors may influence the recipient's emotions, attention, and performance during sport competition.

Teammate Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors Predict Task Cohesion and Burnout: The Mediating Role of Affect.

The manner in which teammates behave toward each other when playing sport could have important achievement-related consequences. However, this issue has received very little research attention. In this study, we investigated whether (a) prosocial and antisocial teammate behaviors predict task cohesion and burnout, and (b) positive and negative affect mediates these relationships. In total, 272 (Mage = 21.86, SD = 4.36) team-sport players completed a multisection questionnaire assessing the aforementioned variables. Structural equation modeling indicated that prosocial teammate behavior positively predicted task cohesion and negatively predicted burnout, and these relationships were mediated by positive affect. The reverse pattern of relationships was observed for antisocial teammate behavior which negatively predicted task cohesion and positively predicted burnout, and these relationships were mediated by negative affect. Our findings underscore the importance of promoting prosocial and reducing antisocial behaviors in sport and highlight the role of affect in explaining the identified relationships.