View article

A Google search on “team chemistry” returns over 443,000 entries (October 2014) usually denoting some sort of team process, such as cohesion, shared mental models, and collective efficacy. Practitioners (eg, athletic coaches and business managers) often emphasize the importance of team chemistry for optimal performance. For instance, former NFL quarterback and current business executive Roger Staubach noted that “In any team sport, the best teams have consistency and chemistry.” Researchers in performance psychology also allude to the notion of “team chemistry” when discussing exceptional teams (Levine, 1994; Gershgoren et al., 2013). Although practitioners and researchers refer to team chemistry as an antecedent of team expertise, there has been neither philosophical nor conceptual debate on whether chemistry principles may indeed inform performance and sport psychology research and practice. Therefore, the question that motivates me to write this commentary paper is:“What if scholars would indeed seek inspiration in microscopic chemistry principles in order to better understand macroscopic team dynamics?” Of note, mixing “soft” and “hard” sciences is common in the pursuit of interdisciplinary research. Applied philosophers and psychologists have long tried to establish connections between group processes and the natural world (ie,“Associationist School”). Recently, psychologists have employed concepts from physics, including quantum theory, to study decision-making in social contexts (Busemeyer et al., 2006). Specific to chemistry, Green (2012) uses history to discuss fundamental organic chemistry principles …