Effects of psychological pressure on first-mover advantage in competitive environments: Evidence from penalty shootouts

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to determine the importance of psychological pressure on performance in sequential tournaments. We make use of penalty shootouts in soccer and test the presence of first-mover advantage. Shootouts in soccer is a formidable framework because it is a natural experiment where teams compete in a sequence whose order is determined by the random outcome of a coin toss. Using data from all 663 penalty shootouts in all major competitions since first implemented in 1970, we fail to identify statistically significant differences in winning probabilities for teams kicking first or second in the shootout sequence.