Who chokes on a penalty kick? Social environment and individual performance during Covid-19 times

Massimiliano Ferraresi and Gianluca Gucciardi

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 203, issue C

Abstract: We use hand-collected data on penalty kicks in the top-level football competitions across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2019/2020 season to analyse how social environment affects the performance of individuals. We exploit the Covid-19 outbreak to induce a plausible source of variation in the supporters’ attendance. We find that for home teams the probability of missing a penalty increases when matches are forced to be played behind closed doors, while visiting teams are less likely to choke on a penalty kick, with these effects being more pronounced when the level of attendance (measured before the pandemic) was high. Taken together, these findings indicate that not only a supportive audience, but also the size of the support plays a key role for success of skill tasks.

Keywords: Social pressure; Choking; Covid-19; Natural experiment; Football (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 J24 M54 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:203:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521001452

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109868

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