A study explores how competitors' momentum influences players' psychology and performance in hierarchies. Hierarchies help organize social landscapes, but the psychology behind rank competition is unclear. Hemant Kakkar and colleagues examined how a competitor's rise in hierarchy over time, or positive status momentum, affects the psychology of a focal player. In a study involving 5.2 million observations of online chess players, individuals had a lower chance of winning if their opponent exhibited positive change in rank. In 3 subsequent studies of 751 individuals, participants expected their competitors to do better and reported higher emotional threat when a competitor had risen in rank, compared with a competitor with the same rank who lacked momentum. In an additional study, 1,072 participants competed online and reported greater threat when a competitor made steady progress in rank, compared with a competitor who had the same rank, although self-affirmation helped reduce the impact of competitor momentum. The authors also examined data spanning from 1990 to 2016 of 2,451 professional tennis players and 117,762 player-match observations. Opponent momentum was associated with a focal tennis player committing more double faults, indicating increased perceptions of threat and reduced likelihood of winning the match. The findings suggest that status momentum may help individuals perform well by impairing the performance of competitors via increased perceptions of threat, according to the authors.
Article #19-08320: "The impact of dynamic status changes within competitive rank-ordered hierarchies," by Hemant Kakkar, Niro Sivanathan, and Nathan C. Pettit.
MEDIA CONTACT: Hemant Kakkar, Duke University, Durham, NC; tel: 919-939-4699; email: hemant.kakkar@duke.edu
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences