bthewigwam
04-01-2010, 07:01 PM
Not my thing but apparently someone (?) deemed this 'scientific', I thought it was funny.
Haven't noticed who but maybe someone on the team has started to be a little more friendly to RJ lately. Who needs it most now?
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/31/1849454/study-finds-personal-touch-makes.html
Study finds personal touch makes all the difference for successful NBA teams
By PETE GRATHOFF
The Kansas City Star
A study that will be published later this year in the journal Emotion brings new meaning to an NBA player having “touch.”
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have found that NBA teams that are touchy — as in giving high fives, hugs, pats on the back, etc. — are more successful.
“For us, it seems really evident that if talent is equal on the court, the team that is really together is going to be the team that ends up winning,” study co-author Michael Kraus said in a phone interview. “These guys play harder when they feel like they are part of a team. One of the ways that guys show you are for them — and with them — is by touch. It’s how you show teamness.”
Kraus, Cassy Huang and Dacher Keltner coded the touch behavior of players from the NBA during the 2008-09 regular season. Given the league’s salary cap, Kraus said, most teams have similar talent levels.
Obviously, there is a difference between say, the Lakers and the Nets, but the researchers focused on the first few months of the season before a team fortunes began to improve or go in the tank.
“The amount teams are touching in that early season game predicts performance over the course of the season,” said Kraus, who will get his doctoral degree next month. “It’s not just that you’re performing better, because it didn’t matter if you won or lost in that game or how efficiently you played in that game, because after accounting for that, we still see the effect.”
The researchers found that the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett was among the league’s touchiest players. Others who were quick with a high-five were the Suns’ Steve Nash, the Nuggets’ Chauncey Billups and the Raptors’ Chris Bosh.
Not surprisingly, all four were All-Stars this season.
Kraus said there is a big difference between teams, too.
“One great example we noticed, this was right after the season in which the Boston Celtics won the championship, and they are a team that is notorious for being together, at least at that time when we studied them,” Kraus said. “They engaged in all sorts of forms of touch.
“Other teams also engage in touch, but for example, the team around here, the Golden State Warriors, you can go several minutes in games and not see anybody have any physical contact with anybody on the same team.”
The helping hand of a successful team even carries over to when a player turns the ball over or misses a shot.
“One of the major touching differences we see is in some of the really good teams when a player has made a negative play, they’ll walk over and give him a hand and pull him up,” Kraus said. “Some of those other teams, you make a negative play ... you can be sitting there for several moments and have to get yourself up.”
Before any skeptic scoffs at the notion of touch having any effect, it should be noted that Harvard researchers have reported that babies that were touched had a noticeable improvement in their brain development.
But touch is not about making NBA players smarter. It’s about camaraderie.
“It’s you being closer and it’s your teammates telling you with their intentional behavior that they are competing with you, they are on the same page as you,” Kraus said. “They are not intending to engage in selfish actions.”
Haven't noticed who but maybe someone on the team has started to be a little more friendly to RJ lately. Who needs it most now?
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/31/1849454/study-finds-personal-touch-makes.html
Study finds personal touch makes all the difference for successful NBA teams
By PETE GRATHOFF
The Kansas City Star
A study that will be published later this year in the journal Emotion brings new meaning to an NBA player having “touch.”
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have found that NBA teams that are touchy — as in giving high fives, hugs, pats on the back, etc. — are more successful.
“For us, it seems really evident that if talent is equal on the court, the team that is really together is going to be the team that ends up winning,” study co-author Michael Kraus said in a phone interview. “These guys play harder when they feel like they are part of a team. One of the ways that guys show you are for them — and with them — is by touch. It’s how you show teamness.”
Kraus, Cassy Huang and Dacher Keltner coded the touch behavior of players from the NBA during the 2008-09 regular season. Given the league’s salary cap, Kraus said, most teams have similar talent levels.
Obviously, there is a difference between say, the Lakers and the Nets, but the researchers focused on the first few months of the season before a team fortunes began to improve or go in the tank.
“The amount teams are touching in that early season game predicts performance over the course of the season,” said Kraus, who will get his doctoral degree next month. “It’s not just that you’re performing better, because it didn’t matter if you won or lost in that game or how efficiently you played in that game, because after accounting for that, we still see the effect.”
The researchers found that the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett was among the league’s touchiest players. Others who were quick with a high-five were the Suns’ Steve Nash, the Nuggets’ Chauncey Billups and the Raptors’ Chris Bosh.
Not surprisingly, all four were All-Stars this season.
Kraus said there is a big difference between teams, too.
“One great example we noticed, this was right after the season in which the Boston Celtics won the championship, and they are a team that is notorious for being together, at least at that time when we studied them,” Kraus said. “They engaged in all sorts of forms of touch.
“Other teams also engage in touch, but for example, the team around here, the Golden State Warriors, you can go several minutes in games and not see anybody have any physical contact with anybody on the same team.”
The helping hand of a successful team even carries over to when a player turns the ball over or misses a shot.
“One of the major touching differences we see is in some of the really good teams when a player has made a negative play, they’ll walk over and give him a hand and pull him up,” Kraus said. “Some of those other teams, you make a negative play ... you can be sitting there for several moments and have to get yourself up.”
Before any skeptic scoffs at the notion of touch having any effect, it should be noted that Harvard researchers have reported that babies that were touched had a noticeable improvement in their brain development.
But touch is not about making NBA players smarter. It’s about camaraderie.
“It’s you being closer and it’s your teammates telling you with their intentional behavior that they are competing with you, they are on the same page as you,” Kraus said. “They are not intending to engage in selfish actions.”