The Role of Cognition and Social Factors in Competition: How Do People with Intellectual Disabilities Respond to Opponents?

Kandianos Emmanouil Sakalidis, Stein Gerrit Paul Menting and Florentina Johanna Hettinga ()
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Kandianos Emmanouil Sakalidis: Department of Sport Exercise and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK
Stein Gerrit Paul Menting: Department of Human Movement Sciences, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 196, 9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands
Florentina Johanna Hettinga: Department of Sport Exercise and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Exploring pacing behaviour in people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in competition will help to better understand the impact of cognition and social environment in sports, providing support for the shaping of proper inclusive sports environments. The present experimental study aimed to (1) compare the pacing behaviour and performance between people with and without ID who are inexperienced in cycling and (2) investigate how these are influenced by an opponent. Participants with ( n = 8) and without ID ( n = 10) performed two randomised 4-km maximal cycling trials, alone and against an opponent. Non-parametric tests for repeated measures data ( p ≤ 0.05) revealed that people with ID cycled slower, but with higher inter-individual variation (both conditions) and paced themselves differently compared to people without ID when competing against an opponent. In contrast to the previous literature in athletes without ID, the presence of a faster opponent resulted in a decrease in the performance in the participants with ID. The negative influence of the opponent highlights the potential difficulties people with ID experience to adequately use their opponents to enhance their self-regulatory processes and optimize their pacing and performance in maximal exercise trials. Coaches who want to offer inclusive sports environments for people with ID could take these findings into consideration.

Keywords: pacing; time trial; head-to-head trial; sports performance; self-regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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