Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: New Evidence from Randomized Natural Experiments

Martin Kocher, Marc V. Lenz () and Matthias Sutter
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Marc V. Lenz: Instituto Superior de Derecho y Economia, E-28001 Madrid, Spain

Management Science, 2012, vol. 58, issue 8, 1585-1591

Abstract: Dynamic competitive settings may create psychological pressure when feedback about the performance of competitors is provided before the end of the competition. Such psychological pressure could produce a first-mover advantage, despite a priori equal winning probabilities. Using data from a randomized natural experiment--penalty shootouts in soccer--we reexamine evidence by Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta [Apesteguia J, Palacios-Huerta I (2010) Psychological pressure in competitive environments: Evidence from a randomized natural experiment. Amer. Econom. Rev . 100(5):2548-2564]. They report a 21-percentage-point advantage for first movers over second movers in terms of winning probabilities. Extending their sample of 129 shootouts to 540, we fail to detect any significant first-mover advantage. Our results are fully consistent with recent evidence from other sports contests. This paper was accepted by Teck Ho, behavioral economics.

Keywords: tournament; first-mover advantage; psychological pressure; field experiment; soccer; penalty shootouts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (97)

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Working Paper: Psychological pressure in competitive environments: New evidence from randomized natural experiments (2012)
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