A sports team is made up of people with different skills and abilities. Each person on the team has their own unique qualities that make them important. Some people might be more popular or respected than others, which is called their “status” (Jacob & Carron, 1997). People on the team might want to have a higher status so they can have more influence and be recognized more (Berger et al., 2002).
Sports research has focused on role theory (Kahn et al., 1964). Team roles are the things that each person is expected to do on the team (Martin & Evans, 2019). These roles can be formal, like being the team captain, or informal, like being the person who plans social events. The roles can be about getting things done or just making the team a happy place. These roles are decided through interactions with other people on the team, and each person’s experience in their role is based on what other people expect from them.
Berger, J., Ridgeway, C. L., & Zelditch, M. (2002). Construction of status and referential structures. Sociological Theory, 20, 157179.
Jacob, C. S., & Carron, A. V. (1997). The sources of status in sport teams. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 27, 369382.
Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. New York: Wiley.
Martin, L. J., & Evans, M. B. (2019). In D. Hackfort, R. J. Schinke, & B. Strauss (Eds.), Dictionary of sport psychology: Sport, exercise, and performing arts. Academic Press.
