IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/202043.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Psychological Pressure and Psychological Traits on Performance – Experimental Evidence of Penalties in Handball

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Buehren

    (Clausthal University of Technology)

  • Lisa Traeger

    (University of Kassel)

Abstract

Our handball penalty field experiment analyses the influence of psychological traits and pressure on individual performance in sequential tournaments. We use a short ABBA-sequence with four throws for each subject and observe an average score rate of 60% in our sample of amateur league players. On game level, we find a weak and insignificant first-mover advantage that becomes stronger and significant if we control for psychological traits and pressure. On shot level, we also find no significant first-mover advantage on average. However, confident individuals have a higher scoring rate in the role of player A and less confident individuals in the role of player B. Moreover, ceteris paribus, player A scores more goals than player B under tournament incentives. Whereas self-esteem increases the probability to throw a goal in our experiment, risk-taking reduces it.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Buehren & Lisa Traeger, 2020. "The Impact of Psychological Pressure and Psychological Traits on Performance – Experimental Evidence of Penalties in Handball," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202043, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
  • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:202043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb02/research-groups/economics/macroeconomics/research/magks-joint-discussion-papers-in-economics/papers/2020-papers/43-2020_buehren.pdf
    File Function: First 202043
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jose Apesteguia & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2010. "Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2548-2564, December.
    2. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2014. "Beautiful Game Theory: How Soccer Can Help Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10260.
    3. Hickman, Daniel C. & Metz, Neil E., 2015. "The impact of pressure on performance: Evidence from the PGA TOUR," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 319-330.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2008. "Do professionals choke under pressure?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 636-653, March.
    5. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
    6. Ladley, Daniel & Wilkinson, Ian & Young, Louise, 2015. "The impact of individual versus group rewards on work group performance and cooperation: A computational social science approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 2412-2425.
    7. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2017. "Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 176-190.
    8. Feri, Francesco & Innocenti, Alessandro & Pin, Paolo, 2013. "Is there psychological pressure in competitive environments?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 249-256.
    9. González-Díaz, Julio & Gossner, Olivier & Rogers, Brian W., 2012. "Performing best when it matters most: Evidence from professional tennis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 767-781.
    10. Martin G. Kocher & Marc V. Lenz & Matthias Sutter, 2012. "Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: New Evidence from Randomized Natural Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1585-1591, August.
    11. Harb-Wu, Ken & Krumer, Alex, 2019. "Choking under pressure in front of a supportive audience: Evidence from professional biathlon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 246-262.
    12. Devin G. Pope & Maurice E. Schweitzer, 2011. "Is Tiger Woods Loss Averse? Persistent Bias in the Face of Experience, Competition, and High Stakes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 129-157, February.
    13. Gueorgui I. Kolev & Gonçalo Pina & Federico Todeschini, 2015. "Decision Making and Underperformance in Competitive Environments: Evidence from the National Hockey League," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 65-80, February.
    14. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00812984 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bühren, Christoph & Steinberg, Philip J., 2019. "The impact of psychological traits on performance in sequential tournaments: Evidence from a tennis field experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 12-29.
    16. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    17. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    18. David W. Lehman & Jungpil Hahn, 2013. "Momentum and Organizational Risk Taking: Evidence from the National Football League," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 852-868, April.
    19. Klaassen, Franc & Magnus, Jan R., 2014. "Analyzing Wimbledon: The Power of Statistics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199355969.
    20. Jonah Berger & Devin Pope, 2011. "Can Losing Lead to Winning?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 817-827, May.
    21. Bühren, Christoph & Kadriu, Valon, 2020. "The fairness of long and short ABBA-sequences: A basketball free-throw field experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    22. Olivier Gossner & Julio González-Díaz & Brian W. Rogers, 2012. "Performing best when it matters most: Evidence from professional tennis," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00812984, HAL.
    23. Olivier Gossner & Julio González-Díaz & Brian W. Rogers, 2012. "Performing best when it matters most: Evidence from professional tennis," Post-Print hal-00812984, HAL.
    24. Richard Williams, 2012. "Using the margins command to estimate and interpret adjusted predictions and marginal effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(2), pages 308-331, June.
    25. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Krumer, Alex & Shapir, Offer Moshe, 2018. "Testing the effect of serve order in tennis tiebreak," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 106-115.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bühren, Christoph & Steinberg, Philip J., 2019. "The impact of psychological traits on performance in sequential tournaments: Evidence from a tennis field experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 12-29.
    2. Christoph Buehren & Marvin Gabriel, 2021. "Performing best when it matters the most: Evidence from professional handball," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202119, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Ricardo Manuel Santos, 2023. "Effects of psychological pressure on first‐mover advantage in competitive environments: Evidence from penalty shootouts," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 354-369, April.
    5. Florian Lindner, 2017. "Choking under pressure of top performers: Evidence from biathlon competitions," Working Papers 2017-24, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    6. Christoph Bühren & Philip J. Steinberg, 2017. "The impact of psychological traits on performance in sequential tournaments: Evidence from a tennis field experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201705, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    7. Bühren, Christoph & Kadriu, Valon, 2020. "The fairness of long and short ABBA-sequences: A basketball free-throw field experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Krumer, Alex, 2020. "Pressure versus ability: Evidence from penalty shoot-outs between teams from different divisions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Bühren Christoph & Gabriel Marvin, 2023. "Performing best when it matters the most: evidence from professional handball," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 185-203, September.
    10. Morgulev, Elia & Azar, Ofer H. & Galily, Yair & Bar-Eli, Michael, 2020. "The role of initial success in competition: An analysis of early lead effects in NBA overtimes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Tom P. Vandebroek & Brian T. McCann & Govert Vroom, 2018. "Modeling the Effects of Psychological Pressure on First-Mover Advantage in Competitive Interactions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 725-754, June.
    12. Wen‐Jhan Jane, 2022. "Choking or excelling under pressure: Evidence of the causal effect of audience size on performance," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 329-357, January.
    13. Bucciol, Alessandro & Castagnetti, Alessandro, 2020. "Choking under pressure in archery," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Böheim, René & Grübl, Dominik & Lackner, Mario, 2019. "Choking under pressure – Evidence of the causal effect of audience size on performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 76-93.
    15. Daniel C. Hickman & Craig Kerr & Neil Metz, 2019. "Rank and Performance in Dynamic Tournaments: Evidence From the PGA Tour," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 509-534, May.
    16. Wen‐Jhan Jane, 2023. "Hot hand or choking under pressure – Evidence from professional basketball," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 223-254, May.
    17. Daniel Goller, 2023. "Analysing a built-in advantage in asymmetric darts contests using causal machine learning," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 649-679, June.
    18. Nicolas Houy & Jean-Philippe Nicolaï & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Always doing your best? Effort and performance in dynamic settings," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 249-286, October.
    19. Arrondel, Luc & Duhautois, Richard & Laslier, Jean-François, 2019. "Decision under psychological pressure: The shooter's anxiety at the penalty kick," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 22-35.
    20. Iqbal, Hamzah & Krumer, Alex, 2017. "Discouragement Effect and Intermediate Prizes in Multi-Stage Contests: Evidence from Tennis’s Davis Cup," Economics Working Paper Series 1719, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:202043. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bernd Hayo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.