Psychological Momentum: Intuitive Physics and Naive Beliefs

The present research examines psychological momentum (PM), a perceived force that lay intuition suggests influences performance. PM theory is proposed to account for how momentum perceptions arise, and four studies demonstrate the influence of lay intuitions about PM on expectations regarding performance outcomes. Study 1 establishes that individuals share intuitions about the types of events that precipitate PM, and Study 2 finds that defeating a rival increases momentum perceptions. Study 3 provides evidence for the lay belief that as more PM accumulates during a prior task, there should be more residual momentum left to carry over to a subsequent task, and Study 4 finds that an individual whose PM is interrupted is expected to have greater difficulty completing a task than is an individual whose steady progress is interrupted. Discussion focuses on linkages between PM and related constructs.

[1]  P. A. Richardson,et al.  Game, Set, Match: Psychological Momentum in Tennis , 1988 .

[2]  M. Harris.  Mediators between frustration and aggression in a field experiment , 1974 .

[3]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Data analysis in social psychology. , 1998 .

[4]  Jim Taylor,et al.  A multidimensional model of momentum in sports , 1994 .

[5]  R. Ralph,et al.  Social Pressures in Informal Groups. , 1951 .

[6]  C. Dweck,et al.  Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  Timothy L. Hubbard,et al.  THE PERCEPTION OF CAUSALITY: INSIGHTS FROM MICHOTTE'S LAUNCHING EFFECT, NAÏVE IMPETUS THEORY, AND REPRESENTATIONAL MOMENTUM , 2004 .

[8]  L. A. Pervin.  Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research , 1992 .

[9]  Peter Salovey,et al.  The Quasi-Acceleration Relation: Satisfaction as a Function of the Change of Velocity of Outcome Over Time , 2008 .

[10]  E. Klinger.  Emotional influences on cognitive processing, with implications for theories of both. , 1996 .

[11]  Robert E. Park,et al.  An outline of the principles of sociology , 1939 .

[12]  C. Anderson,et al.  Explanations: Processes and consequences. , 1996 .

[13]  K. Mobily,et al.  “Psychological Momentum”: A Phenomenon and an Empirical (Unobtrusive) Validation of its Influence in a Competitive Sport Tournament , 1980 .

[14]  W. Polonsky,et al.  The Tipping Point , 2007, The Diabetes educator.

[15]  Robert J. Vallerand,et al.  Psychological Momentum and Performance Inferences: A Preliminary Test of the Antecedents-Consequences Psychological Momentum Model , 1988 .

[16]  Ian M. Thornton,et al.  Representational momentum: New findings, new directions , 2002 .

[17]  A. Tversky,et al.  The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences , 1985, Cognitive Psychology.

[18]  Robert P. Abelson,et al.  Velocity relation : satisfaction as a function of the first derivative of outcome over time , 1991 .

[19]  Z. Kunda,et al.  Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. , 1987 .

[20]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[21]  C. Carver,et al.  Origins and Functions of Positive and Negative Affect: A Control-Process View. , 1990 .

[22]  M. McCloskey.  Naive Theories of Motion. , 1982 .

[23]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Optimal experience in work and leisure. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  Nira Liberman,et al.  Accessibility from active and fulfilled goals , 2005 .

[25]  J. Bargh,et al.  The psychology of action : linking cognition and motivation to behavior , 1999 .

[26]  James J. Lindsay,et al.  THE DEVELOPMENT, PERSEVERANCE, AND CHANGE OF NAIVE THEORIES , 1998 .

[27]  T. Hubbard,et al.  Environmental invariants in the representation of motion: Implied dynamics and representational momentum, gravity, friction, and centripetal force , 1995, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[28]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[29]  R. Kelly Crace,et al.  Analysis of Psychological Momentum in Intercollegiate Tennis , 1988 .

[30]  Seymour Epstein,et al.  Cognitive-experiential self-theory. , 1998 .

[31]  F. Heider.  The psychology of interpersonal relations , 1958 .

[32]  M. Hegarty,et al.  Impetus beliefs as default heuristics: Dissociation between explicit and implicit knowledge about motion , 2001, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[33]  R. Vallerand,et al.  Coming from Behind: On the Effect of Psychological Momentum on Sport Performance , 1998 .

[34]  J. Crane.  The Epidemic Theory of Ghettos and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and Teenage Childbearing , 1991, American Journal of Sociology.

[35]  Mark R. Lepper,et al.  Perseverance in self-perception and social perception: biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm. , 1975, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[36]  A. Tesser,et al.  Some ruminative thoughts. , 1996 .

[37]  C. Crandall,et al.  Social contagion of binge eating. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[38]  M. Sobel.  Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models , 1982 .