Prior research showed that swimmers swim faster in relay than in individual competitions if they start at later relay positions. This finding is typically explained via the swimmers’ relay position and their associated perception that their individual performance is indispensable for their teams’ performance. Using multilevel modeling, the authors disentangled this situational explanation from alternative accounts focusing on individual differences between swimmers. Two studies empirically supported the situational explanation: When using a within-person approach and, thus, controlling for between-person variance (i.e., individual differences between swimmers), the swimmers’ relay position remained a significant predictor of the increases in effort spent in relays. This finding held when controlling for the on-average higher instrumentality in the relay versus the individual competitions. Thus, the often observed effort gains in swimming relays probably are due to the swimmers’ relay position as a situational explanation and stem from the motivating impact of teamwork versus individual work.

先前的研究表明，如果游泳运动员从较晚的接力位置开始，接力比赛中的游得比个人比赛中游得更快。这一发现通常是通过游泳运动员的接力位置以及他们的相关认知来解释的，即他们的个人表现对于团队的表现是不可或缺的。作者使用多层次模型，将这种情境解释与关注游泳运动员之间个体差异的其他解释分开。两项研究从经验上支持了情境解释：当使用人内方法并因此控制人与人之间的差异（即游泳运动员之间的个体差异）时，游泳运动员的接力位置仍然是在比赛中花费的努力增加的重要预测因素。继电器。在控制接力赛与个人赛中平均较高的工具性时，这一发现成立。因此，在游泳接力赛中经常观察到的努力增益可能是由于游泳运动员的接力位置作为一种情境解释，并且源于团队合作与个人工作的激励影响。