[voor een Nederlandse vertaling van dit bericht klik hier] In sports, long the idea has prevailed that sexual abstinence, that is, no sex before competition, is good for sports performance. Recent research however shows that healthier people have more sex.…
Dr. Paul Zak explains how morality (read: important decisions when we work together with other people, such as in team sports), is linked to the neuro-peptide oxytocin. Taken from the BBC documentary Horizon: Are you Good or Evil.
“I think soccer player contracts should have a clause going something like: the player has to have sex on the day before a game and, if possible, on the day of the game. When I do it before a game…
Emotional contagion is an important process to consider in the context of elite sport performance and training. A talk at 13th FEPSAC European Congress of Sport Psychology July 2011 on Madeira, Portugal. Research has shown that teams that show more positive and team…
A talk at 13th FEPSAC European Congress of Sport Psychology July 2011 on Madeira, Portugal. We examined the association between celebratory responses after successful football penalty kicks and the outcome of a penalty shootout. Method: Individually displayed post-shot behaviours in…
When you think about chances it is easy to think about gambling. But also in science chances are important. Scientists use statistics to discover which theories are more likely then others. But the notion of chance always remains relatively abstract.…
Watch Geir Jordet present a nice overview of research on performing under pressure in elite football. Geir shows how high ego, ego threat, and emotional distress can lead to self regulation failure, that is, missed penalties in footbal. He also…
Great players, great expression of emotions. Bergkamp is my favourite great player – this is what he said about him celebrating his greatest goal ever … ___ At that moment I thought about when I was seven or eight years…
One of the things I’m very interested in is how positive emotions (such as joy, happiness, etc.) can help football players make better decisions. One of the many things that positive emotions do is that they fuel psychological and physical…
With never-before-seen video, primatologist Isabel Behncke Izquierdo (a TED Fellow) shows how bonobo ape society learns from constantly playing — solo, with friends, even as a prelude to sex. Indeed, play appears to be the bonobos’ key to problem-solving and…
Perception and Action in Ageing and Performance 