Team decision-making behavior: An ecological dynamics approach

Abstract

Athletes act intentionally and adaptively for achieving task goals in sport performance environments. The ecological dynamics approach to decision making understands the performer‐environment system as the unit of analysis to understand behavior, where action is not just limited to processes occurring in the individual (e.g., information-processing theories) or in the environment (behaviorist approaches) but implies the close link between the two. In the present article we synthesize the key tenets of the ecological dynamics theoretical framework and describe how both individual and group decision-making in sport can be understood. We explain how behavior and decision-making are based upon self-organized processes, from which functional synergies emerge, paving the way for expert performance in individuals and groups. Specifically, considering group decision-making, we describe how team members are coordinated in the complex system that the team is. Finally, we suggest that the ecological dynamics approach is a well-suited framework to research individual and team cognition, with many applications to practice.