Athletic glory is contagious, scientists say
TORONTO — Kierra Smith was pumped by what she was seeing in the pool at the Pan Am Aquatics Centre Tuesday night. Her Canadian teammates, a bunch of women she has known for years, kept winning gold medals.
Gold in the 100m freestyle, gold in the 4x100m relay, gold in the butterfly, en route to setting two Pan Am records. Smith, who was due to compete on Wednesday in the 200m breaststroke, had to leave early that night with a near-overdose of positive energy.
She went out and won gold the next day.
Proudly wearing that gold medal around her neck Thursday at Canada House, Smith spoke of “momentum,” and of the contagious nature of winning.
“The emotions at the pool were so incredibly high on Monday that I had drawn as much energy as I possibly could from being there,” Smith says. ‘’We had gone out and made a statement, and so going into that second night I really felt a sense of confidence.
“I really felt that if my teammates could do it then I could go out and do it for myself.”
Everywhere you look at these Pan Am games, Canadians are winning gold: in swimming, rowing, canoeing, mountain biking, shooting and judo and gymnastics and more, for a running tally of 34 gold that has put Canada atop the medal standings.
Will Crothers, a double-gold medallist in rowing, describes the ongoing medal harvest as “gold fever,” and suggests that each success helps beget the next. But does it? Is winning contagious?
Jessica Fraser-Thomas is an assistant professor of health sciences at York University. She explains that a popular area of study among the experts in her field is the trickle down effect of major competitions.
Meaning if, say, Kierra Smith wins a Pan Am gold on Wednesday, will Joe Blow watching at home be inspired to eat healthy and go swimming Thursday? The short answer: no. But athletes at the highest level aren’t Joe Blow, and they do benefit from an “inspiration effect,” says Fraser-Thomas.
For anecdotal proof she points to Canadian triathlete Simon Whitfield.
Whitfield was past his prime at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But after watching rower Adam Kreek win a gold and then sing his lungs out on the podium, Whitfield felt so inspired that he wrote “Sing Like Kreek” on his handlebars and then ran the best race of his career to grab a silver medal.
The inspiration effect is rooted in the social learning theory of Albert Bandura, a Stanford psychologist who argued self- confidence is enhanced through “vicarious success.”
“So if we see somebody else being successful, and if we see somebody else doing something that we can do, too, that contributes to our confidence — and then we put more persistence and effort into doing it,” Fraser-Thomas says.
Another factor in vicarious success is the proximity of the person that you are modelling.
The closer that person is, the more you can relate to them, and the greater effect their success could have on you.