The role of motivation in selection processes-comparing sports and business.

Talent identification and selection in sports pose significant challenges, necessitating a nuanced understanding of factors influencing athletes' elite-level potential. While physical and physiological aspects have conventionally played roles in the selection process, also other constructs of talent development have to be considered. Various talent models have included psychological aspects, especially motivation, as either moderators or catalysts.

No relevant spectator impact on home advantage in male and female professional volleyball - A longitudinal multilevel logistic model analysis over 25 years.

Home advantage (HA) regularly occurs in volleyball (Pollard et al., 2017: men: 56.62%, women: 55.

Elite darts performance and the social influence of real crowds and simulated crowd noise.

While the effect of missing audiences has been studied numerously in team sports with diverse effects, studies on individual performances are rare. The current investigation analyzes performances of professional dart players in (a) the absence of spectators, (b) the presence of real crowds, and (c) artificial crowd noise (simulated crowds) substituting live spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical evidence suggests that performances in coordination-based accuracy tasks are negatively impacted by the presence of others.

The Impact of Wearing and Perceiving Colors on Hormonal, Physiological, and Psychological Parameters in Cycling.

This study examines the influence of wearing and perceiving colors in a cycling setting while also examining cortisol, heart rate, estimated maximum oxygen consumption, and subjective performance ratings. A total of 99 individuals completed the study, consisting of cortisol measurements, which compared baseline values to those after changing into a red or blue outfit, and a maximum cycling task performed wearing the same outfit while competing against a video opponent in red or blue. Each participant completed the protocol twice on separate days.

Do We Share the Same View? Validating the Shared Mental Models in Team Sports Questionnaire.

Shared mental models (SMMs) can exert a positive influence on team sports performance because team members with SMMs share similar tasks and team-related knowledge. There is currently insufficient sports research on SMMs because the underlying theory has not been adapted adequately to the sports context, and different SMMs measurement instruments have been used in past studies. In the present study we aimed to externally validate and determine the construct validity of the "Shared Mental Models in Team Sports Questionnaire" (SMMTSQ).

Do we agree on who is playing the ball? Developing a video-based measurement for Shared Mental Models in tennis doubles.

Sport teams work in complex environments in which each member's tasks are mutually dependent on those of the others. To function effectively, expert teams generate Shared Mental Models (SMMs) to help adapt their own behavior to that of the others and master upcoming actions. Although SMMs have been discussed in domains such as organizations, there is still little research in the context of sport.

The Influence of Fitness-App Usage on Psychological Well-Being and Body Awareness-A Daily Diary Randomized Trial.

Self-tracking via fitness apps is popular and has been described as a means to enhance body awareness and well-being. However, the effects of fitness-app use and specific app functions on well-being and body awareness have yet to be targeted in controlled experimental studies. In two randomized groups, a fitness tracker was used for 6 weeks, and in one group a daily step target was implemented.

Validation of the vignette-based German Exercise Causality Orientation Scale (G-ECOS).

The Self-Determination Theory has been applied to explain behaviour in numerous contexts and cultures. In the exercise context, causality orientations (autonomy, control, impersonal) are important to describe individual differences in initiation and maintenance of health behaviour. The assessment of exercise causality orientations can be a key element to improve predictions of motivated health and exercise behaviour.

The Relationship Between Motor Competence and Physical Fitness from Early Childhood to Early Adulthood: A Meta-Analysis.

Background: Motor competence and physical fitness are important factors for promoting positive trajectories of health over time. In 2008, Stodden and colleagues developed a model that discussed the role of both factors in physical activity. Furthermore, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between motor competence and physical fitness is reciprocal and changes over time.

Perception of the Current Anti-doping Regime - A Quantitative Study Among German Top-Level Cyclists and Track and Field Athletes.

In recent years anti-doping organizations have implemented various measures to deter elite athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs. One of the main challenges in the fight against doping is that the effectiveness of these anti-doping measures is still unknown. Since the effectiveness of the measures depends primarily on the athletes' perception, this study focuses on the following four objectives: (1) How effective do top-level athletes perceive individual anti-doping measures to be? (2) Are the results stable across different sports and (3) genders? (4) How can the anti-doping measures be structured into appropriate categories? To address these issues the perceived effectiveness of 14 anti-doping measures was surveyed among 146 top athletes from Germany (Cycling: = 42; Athletics: = 104) who are members of at least the National Testing Pool.

Further Evidence for an External Focus of Attention in Running: Looking at Specific Focus Instructions and Individual Differences.

Although attentional focusing in sports has been broadly investigated, the findings vary when it comes to endurance sports. This study provides a comparison between relevant foci in the literature of running economy. These include two internal foci-one addressing automated processes (running movement) and the other nonautomated processes (internal body signals and perceived exertion), an external focus (video) and a control condition.

Emotionality of Colors: An Implicit Link between Red and Dominance.

The color red has been shown to alter emotions, physiology, psychology, and behavior. Research has suggested that these alterations could possibly be due to a link between red and perceived dominance. In this study we examined if the color red is implicitly associated to the concept of dominance.

Perceptual-cognitive expertise of handball coaches in their young and middle adult years.

There is little research investigating the maintenance of perceptual-cognitive expertise in general and even less comparing coaches of different ages. The aim of this study was to test for perceptual-cognitive differences between age groups, licence levels, and their interaction. This study investigated differences in skilled performance between young and middle-aged coaches of three different skill levels.

The 'Quiet Eye' and Motor Performance: A Systematic Review Based on Newell's Constraints-Led Model.

Introduction: The quiet eye (final fixation to a specific target prior to movement initiation) is a perceptual skill robustly associated with expertise and superior performance. The benefit of the phenomenon has been demonstrated in a range of sporting tasks. The mechanism(s) underpinning this phenomenon are much-debated and are associated with varying assumptions.

Accuracy of Outcome Anticipation, But Not Gaze Behavior, Differs Against Left- and Right-Handed Penalties in Team-Handball Goalkeeping.

Low perceptual familiarity with relatively rarer left-handed as opposed to more common right-handed individuals may result in athletes' poorer ability to anticipate the former's action intentions. Part of such left-right asymmetry in visual anticipation could be due to an inefficient gaze strategy during confrontation with left-handed individuals. To exemplify, observers may not mirror their gaze when viewing left- vs.

Why the Three-Point Rule Failed to Sufficiently Reduce the Number of Draws in Soccer: An Application of Prospect Theory.

Incentives guide human behavior by altering the level of external motivation. We apply the idea of loss aversion from prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) to the point reward systems in soccer and investigate the controversial impact of the three-point rule on reducing the fraction of draws in this sport. Making use of the Poisson nature of goal scoring, we compared empirical results with theoretically deduced draw ratios from 24 countries encompassing 20 seasons each (N = 118.

Home advantage in soccer--A matter of expectations, goal setting and tactical decisions of coaches?

In soccer, home teams win about 67% of decided games. The causes for this home advantage are still unresolved. There is a shortage of research on the psychological states of actors involved.

Retention of quiet eye in older skilled basketball players.

There is mounting research to suggest that cognitive and motor expertise is more resistant to age-related decline than more general capacities. The authors investigated the retention of skills in medium-aged skilled (n = 14) and older-aged skilled (n = 7) athletes by comparing them with medium-aged less skilled (n = 15) and older-aged less skilled (n = 15) participants. Participants performed basketball free throws and dart throws as a transfer task under standardized conditions.

Cognitive fatigue effects on physical performance during running.

This study investigated the effect of cognitive fatigue on physical performance in a paced running task. Experienced runners (n = 20) performed two 3,000-m runs on an indoor track, once after cognitive fatigue, and once under nonfatigued conditions. Completion times were significantly slower in the cognitive fatigue condition (M = 12:11,88 min, SD = 0:54,26), compared with the control condition (M = 11:58,56 min, SD = 0:48,39), F(1, 19) = 8.

Finale furioso: referee-biased injury times and their effects on home advantage in football.

The role of referees has become a central issue in the investigation of home advantage. The main aim of this study was a thorough examination of the referee bias concerning injury time in football, which is currently seen as an important example for the assertion that referees contribute to home advantage. First, we use archival data from the German Bundesliga (seasons 2000/2001-2010/2011) to confirm the existence of an asymmetry in the allocation of injury time.

An internal focus of attention is not always as bad as its reputation: how specific aspects of internally focused attention do not hinder running efficiency.

The aim of this study was to examine differentiated effects of internally focused attention in endurance sports. Thirty-two active runners ran 24 min on a treadmill at a fixed speed of moderate intensity. For each 6-min block, participants had to direct their attention on different internal aspects (movement execution, breathing, or feeling of the body) or received no instructions.

Transfer of motor and perceptual skills from basketball to darts.

The quiet eye is a perceptual skill associated with expertise and superior performance; however, little is known about the transfer of quiet eye across domains. We attempted to replicate previous skill-based differences in quiet eye and investigated whether transfer of motor and perceptual skills occurs between similar tasks. Throwing accuracy and quiet eye duration for skilled and less-skilled basketball players were examined in basketball free throw shooting and the transfer task of dart throwing.

Attentional processes and choking under pressure.

The self-focus theory of choking under pressure explains decreases in performance of well-learned motor tasks with an increase in skill-focused attention. This shift in attentional focus has been demonstrated; however, specific propositions about the processes in pressure-induced attentional shift are yet to be developed. This study assesses whether specific aspects of movement execution attract more attention than others when movements are executed under pressure.

Does playing experience improve coaching? An exploratory study of perceptual-cognitive skill in soccer coaches.

In many sports, it is common for top coaching positions to be held by former players; however, despite the natural progression in many sports for skilled players to become high level coaches, we have little understanding of how playing may develop useful skills for coaching. In this study we considered perceptual-cognitive skill across groups of high and low-skilled soccer players and soccer coaches. A range of perceptual-cognitive variables was measured in an attempt to capture the diverse skills related to expertise in sport and coaching.

Your fate is in your hands? Handedness, digit ratio (2D:4D), and selection to a national talent development system.

Over the past decade a small evidence base has highlighted the potential importance of seemingly innocuous variables related to one's hands, such as hand dominance and the relative length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D ratio), to success in sport. This study compared 2D:4D digit ratio and handedness among handball players selected to advance in a national talent development system with those not selected. Participants included 480 youth handball players (240 females and 240 males) being considered as part of the talent selection programme for the German Youth National team.