Incentives, performance and choking in darts

Bouke Klein Teeselink, Rogier J.D. Potter van Loon, Martijn J. van den Assem and Dennie van Dolder

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 169, issue C, 38-52

Abstract: This paper examines how within-match variation in incentives affects the performance of darts players. The game of darts offers an attractive naturally occurring research setting, because performance can be observed at the individual level and without obscuring effects of risk considerations and behavior of others. We analyze four data sets covering a total of 29,381 darts matches of professional, amateur, and youth players. We find that amateur and youth players display a sizable performance decrease at decisive moments. Professional players appear less susceptible of such choking under pressure. Our results speak to a growing literature on the limits of increasing incentives as a recipe for better performance.

Keywords: Incentives; Performance pressure; Choking under pressure; Darts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D91 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268119303439
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Incentives, Performance and Choking in Darts (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:169:y:2020:i:c:p:38-52

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.10.026

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().