The impact of psychological traits on performance in sequential tournaments: Evidence from a tennis field experiment

Christoph Bühren and Philip J. Steinberg

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2019, vol. 72, issue C, 12-29

Abstract: Extant research has analyzed the impact of player position (first- versus second-mover) on individual performance in sequential tournaments. However, it remains unclear whether the first- or second-mover experiences an advantage in such tournaments. We argue that prior literature has ignored heterogeneity of psychological traits and incentive schemes. We conducted a tennis field experiment using the ABBA sequence, in which we do not find a first- or second-mover advantage on game level. However, on shot level (taking into account single moves) we observe, on average, a second-mover advantage. Analyzing the impact of psychological traits, we find that subjects with high self-esteem faced a second-mover advantage whereas subjects with low self-esteem faced a first-mover advantage on shot level. We do not observe significant moderating influences of individual, team, or tournament incentive schemes.

Keywords: Performance under pressure; Experiment; Psychological traits; Second-mover advantage; Tennis; Sequential tournaments; Theory of core self-evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D81 M52 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:72:y:2019:i:c:p:12-29

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.12.010

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