BIO

My name is Evan Rubenstein and I am a first-year Psychology student at Florida State University looking to complete their Masters in Sport Psychology here at FSU. Being from Coral Springs, an area in northern Broward, Tallahassee is quite a ways from home. However, my interest in Sport Psychology research led me to FSU and its Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. In the future, I am hoping to apply the developments made in this young field to the growing world of esports as a mental health specialist who focuses on professional esports athletes.

Are Teammates Rivals or Role Models?

Abstract

Victories, defeats, and celebrations are all experiences that incite emotional responses. How athletes engage in emotions after competition can provide crucial information to their teammates (van Kleef, 2009). The significance of an accomplishment is signaled by a teammate's displays of pride, elevating their status, thus potentially invoking admiration, benign envy, or malicious envy in onlooking teammates (Tracey & Matsumoto, 2008, Lange et al., 2018; Lange & Crusius, 2015; van de Ven et al., 2011). In turn, these emotional responses may motivate the onlooking teammate’s behaviors. To study this phenomenon further, our research investigates how the perception of a teammate’s pride will predict a particular emotional response (e.g., admiration, benign envy, or malicious envy) and how in turn those responses predict higher or lower participation in corresponding behaviors (e.g., one’s own effort, compassion towards teammates, antisocial behaviors, and affiliation motives) that may benefit or damage their individual and team athletic performance. We will be surveying NCAA collective individual athletic teams. After every competition we will send out a survey to assess their perceptions of pride and their emotional response. Then 24 to 48 hours before the next competition we will send out a behavioral reflection survey to assess compassion towards teammates, antisocial behavior, own effort, and affiliation motive. We expect to find that displays of authentic pride will predict more admiration and benign envy and displays of hubristic pride will predict more malicious envy. These findings show how the complex model of perceptions of pride and emotional responses impact athletic performance.

Keywords: sports psychology pride envy admiration