Emotional Shocks and Performance: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup

Abstract

Significant events can trigger emotions affecting individuals’ performance. This paper uses granular, event-level data from the 2018 FIFA football World Cup to study how scored and conceded goals impact performance as measured by each player’s passing ability. These emotional swings allow for the study of these shocks’ influence and duration on players’ ability to pass the ball. The main result shows that conceded goals negatively impact individual performance between three and nine minutes of the trigger effect, while scored goals do not significantly impact passing ability at the conventional levels.