{"title":"Who’s afraid of the GOATs? - Shadow effects of tennis superstars","authors":"Christian Deutscher , Lena Neuberg , Stefan Thiem","doi":"10.1016/j.joep.2023.102663","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In multi-stage tournaments, anticipated competition in future stages might affect the outcome of competition in the current stage. In particular, the presence of superstars might demotivate the next-best competitors from seeking to advance to later rounds, where they ultimately are likely to face a superstar. Data from men’s professional tennis tournaments held between 2004 and 2019 affirm that the participation of superstars (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray) reduces the probability that the remaining Top 20 players win their matches. Such shadow effects arise even in very early tournament stages, in which favoured players lose more often than expected, given their ability. The effects are more pronounced when multiple superstars compete in the tournament and disappear once all superstars have been eliminated from competition. Furthermore, shadow effects increase the probability of retirement of strong but non-superstar competitors and disappear once superstar performance is not dominant.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48318,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Economic Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487023000648","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In multi-stage tournaments, anticipated competition in future stages might affect the outcome of competition in the current stage. In particular, the presence of superstars might demotivate the next-best competitors from seeking to advance to later rounds, where they ultimately are likely to face a superstar. Data from men’s professional tennis tournaments held between 2004 and 2019 affirm that the participation of superstars (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray) reduces the probability that the remaining Top 20 players win their matches. Such shadow effects arise even in very early tournament stages, in which favoured players lose more often than expected, given their ability. The effects are more pronounced when multiple superstars compete in the tournament and disappear once all superstars have been eliminated from competition. Furthermore, shadow effects increase the probability of retirement of strong but non-superstar competitors and disappear once superstar performance is not dominant.
期刊介绍:
The Journal aims to present research that will improve understanding of behavioral, in particular psychological, aspects of economic phenomena and processes. The Journal seeks to be a channel for the increased interest in using behavioral science methods for the study of economic behavior, and so to contribute to better solutions of societal problems, by stimulating new approaches and new theorizing about economic affairs. Economic psychology as a discipline studies the psychological mechanisms that underlie economic behavior. It deals with preferences, judgments, choices, economic interaction, and factors influencing these, as well as the consequences of judgements and decisions for economic processes and phenomena. This includes the impact of economic institutions upon human behavior and well-being. Studies in economic psychology may relate to different levels of aggregation, from the household and the individual consumer to the macro level of whole nations. Economic behavior in connection with inflation, unemployment, taxation, economic development, as well as consumer information and economic behavior in the market place are thus among the fields of interest. The journal also encourages submissions dealing with social interaction in economic contexts, like bargaining, negotiation, or group decision-making. The Journal of Economic Psychology contains: (a) novel reports of empirical (including: experimental) research on economic behavior; (b) replications studies; (c) assessments of the state of the art in economic psychology; (d) articles providing a theoretical perspective or a frame of reference for the study of economic behavior; (e) articles explaining the implications of theoretical developments for practical applications; (f) book reviews; (g) announcements of meetings, conferences and seminars.