Thomas Teubel *, Jens B. Asendorpf **, Rainer Banse *** and Konrad Schnabel **
(*) Institute of Sports and Sports Sciences, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
(**) Institute of Psychology, Department of Personality Psychology Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
(***) Institute for Psychology, Department of Social and Legal Psychology, Universität Bonn, Germany
Citation
Teubel, T., B. Asendorpf, J., Banse, R., Schnabel, K. (2011). Implicit but not explicit aggressiveness predicts performance outcome in basketball players. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 42(4), 390-400.
Abstract
Current research in social cognition provides evidence that the prediction of behavior can be improved by the use of new indirect measurement procedures (e.g., the Implicit Association Test; IAT). Indirect measures, unlike direct measures, are less affected by introspective limits and response factors. The present study extends the research on aggression in sports with indirect measures, namely the IAT. German semi-professional basketball players (N = 54) completed measures of implicit and explicit aggressiveness. The IAT predicted performance outcome (court playing time and coach’s judgments on game performance) over and above the direct measures. The prediction of court playing was fully mediated by the coach’s judgments. The results reported here suggest that indirect measures may show good utility in other areas of sport psychology.
Keywords: Explicit and implicit aggressiveness, Implicit Association Test (IAT), Performance prediction, basketball