The dynamics of psychological momentum in sport: the role of ongoing history of performance patterns.

Borrowing the dynamical systems perspective, two studies aimed to examine the potential properties of nonlinearity and history dependence of psychological momentum. Male regional-level table tennis players were asked to empathize with players in a very important contest by watching two video scenarios of a table tennis game in two separate sessions. The videos presented two inverted scenarios in which score gaps gradually increased or decreased. Competitive anxiety, self-confidence (Study 1), and goal involvement states (Study 2) were measured before each point. Cognitive and somatic anxieties decreased linearly during the increasing scenario, but increased nonlinearly in the decreasing scenario. Mastery-avoidance goals decreased nonlinearly in the increasing scenario, increased nonlinearly in the decreasing scenario, and displayed a negative hysteresis pattern. These findings offer new insights into the dynamics of psychological momentum and suggest new avenues of research.