EXPECTANCY | 23 | v2 | Sport and Exercise Psychology: The Key Concepts

ABSTRACT

The state of anticipating the probability of an outcome is expectancy. It is formed from ex, meaning ‘‘out,’’ and spectare, Latin for ‘‘look.’’ Expectancy bears heavily on how athletes evaluate the signiﬁcance and consequences of a COMPETITION and how they respond in an EMOTIONAL sense to situations arising once that contest is under way. An example of how this works in practice is given by Peter

Crocker et al., who hypothesize a basketball player who has been injured during a game: ‘‘Initially she is very angry if she believes that the other person was responsible.’’ The ANGER subsides as she realizes that she may be out for the rest of the season, paving the way for ‘‘unhappiness’’ to set in. Then, she examines the INJURY to discover it is not so serious and that she will receive top medical treatment. ‘‘Her expectancies are that the situation will get better.’’ As the extent of the injury becomes clear, she anticipates that she will still be able to pursue her goals after all. ‘‘This will change the emotional state of unhappiness into a different emotional state, such as relief.’’ In this example, expectancies change as appraisals of immediate

situations change and the athlete modiﬁes her anticipation of the future. Expectancy is part of a general appraisal process. The precise way in which expectancy is understood depends on a theoretical approach. For instance, a behaviorist interested in the REINFORCEMENT value of contingencies will study expectancy through such objective features as muscular tension, eye dilation, and, perhaps, other indicators of AROUSAL, while a researcher focused on COGNITION will wish to study expectancy through the perceptions, states of awareness, and general subjective apprehension of the subject. There are two basic applications of the concept in sport and exercise psychology: Application 1: Expectancy value. Expectancy is one of three different

types of belief that contribute to MOTIVATION, according to a 1964 book by V. H. Vroom, the others being instrumentality (the belief that a performance will be rewarded) and valence (the perceived value of the reward to the individual). A person who never receives reinforcement when practicing a SKILL may have a low expectancy level such that, no matter how hard they try, they will not achieve a higher level and may not try too hard. Even if they do work hard and still receive little or no REWARD, motivation is likely to recede. If and when the rewards do arrive, they have to be appropriate. For instance, there is no point in rewarding a child learning a new skill with a new bike if

they were longing for a PlayStation. This is, of course, an unlikely scenario. In practical terms, the adult offering the reward would probably exert a socializing inﬂuence on the child, shaping the child’s values and ambitions to the point where there would be symmetry between the expectancy and the valence. Application 2: Expectancy effects. This is associated with the SELF-

FULFILLING PROPHECY and refers to the manner in which beliefs formed before an activity can affect the actual outcome of the activity in a way that conﬁrms the initial expectancy. The process has a self-validating efﬁcacy. Information available to athletes, their opponents, judges, ofﬁcials, coaches, and so on may be partial, distorted or plainly false, but it can still be used to form a set of expectations about others. This can guide the way in which a subject perceives, considers, and interprets further information. The subject ﬁlters through information, discovers, then pays attention selectively to items of information that are encoded in a way that supports the expectancy, and remembers them. In actual encounters, this information affects both the subject’s judgment and hence behavior toward the object of the expectancy. The reputations of ﬁgure skaters, or gymnasts performing last, have

been shown to be factors leading to expectancy effects, judges tending to award higher scores to last-appearing gymnasts or to ‘‘name’’ skaters. But the research does not show conclusively ‘‘that pre-event expectancies can inﬂuence the evaluation of performances,’’ according to Richard Buscombe et al., whose own research on tennis players’ pre-match BODY LANGUAGE and dress highlighted how information early in a competitive encounter is used to inﬂuence the way future information is used and their perceived likelihood of success. This does not suggest a guarantee, however, and, as Kristina

Diekmann and her colleagues point out: ‘‘Individuals will fail to accurately predict how they will behave when faced with a competitive opponent.’’ There is a ‘‘disconnection’’ between desirability (our ideal representation of future events) and feasibility. ‘‘People rarely accurately perceive the situational constraints that will propel their behavior and do not make adequate allowance for the uncertainties of situational constraints,’’ Diekmann et al. conclude. Those situational constraints can include practically anything. Diekmann et al.’s research also reveals how ‘‘the target of the

competitive expectancy’’ can change as a result of the original forecast, especially if the holder of the belief has failed to consider the motivations inspired in the opponent by a competitive situation. There is a tendency to FOCUS on the foreground rather than the

‘‘situational background’’ or the ‘‘larger CONTEXT.’’ Targets of a competitive expectancy came to see themselves as more competitive and behave more aggressively. The study highlights the inﬂuence of expectancy, though not necessarily in bringing about a desired outcome.