| Abstract: |
Much like cognitive abilities, emotional skills can have major effects on
perfor mance and economic outcomes. This paper studies the behavior of
professional subjects involved in a dynamic competition in their own natural
environment. The setting is a penalty shoot-out in soccer where two teams
compete in a tournament framework taking turns in a sequence of five penalty
kicks each. As the kicking order is determined by the random outcome of a coin
flip, the treatment and control groups are determined via explicit
randomization. Therefore, absent any psychological effects, both teams should
have the same probability of winning regardless of the kicking order. Yet, we
find a systematic first-kicker advantage. Using data on 2,731 penalty kicks
from 262 shoot-outs for a three decade period, we find that teams kicking
first win the penalty shoot-out 60.5% of the time. A dynamic panel data
analysis shows that the psychological mechanism underlying this result arises
from the asymmetry in the partial score. As most kicks are scored, kicking
first typically means having the opportunity to lead in the partial score,
whereas kicking second typically means lagging in the score and having the
opportunity to, at most, get even. Having a worse prospect than the opponent
hinders subjects' performance. Further, we also find that professionals are
self-aware of their own psychological effects. When a recent change in
regulations gives winners of the coin toss the chance to choose the kicking
order, they rationally react to it by systematically choosing to kick first. A
survey of professional players reveals that when asked to explain why they
prefer to kick first, they precisely identify the psychological mechanism for
which we find empirical support in the data: they want “to lead in the score
in order to put pressure on the opponent." |