Perception of Cohesion in Interactive Sports Teams

The aim of this study is to examine perception of cohesion in highly interdependent sports teams, compare cohesion in different sports, and then compare social and task cohesion. The participants were 205 professional sports players in the city of Belgrade, Serbia. They are engaged in five different sports: football/soccer, basketball, volleyball, handball, and water polo. The Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) was used to collect the data. All the analyses were carried out with the SPSS 22 statistical software. The results have shown moderately high levels of all four dimensions of cohesion (Group Integration – Task, Group Integration – Social, Individual Attractions to the Group – Task, and Individual Attractions to the Group – Social) in all sports. Overall, perception of task cohesion is higher than perception of social cohesion. The study also reveals that type of sport played impacts on level of cohesion, with basketball players having the highest scores of all.