Citation

Raab M, Laborde S. Res. Q. Exerc. Sport 2011; 82(1): 89-98.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, German Sport University-Cologne. raab@dshs-koeln.de

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

21462689

Abstract

Intuition is often considered an effective manner of decision making in sports. In this study we investigated whether a preference for intuition over deliberation results in faster and better lab-based choices in team handball attack situations with 54 male and female handball players of different expertise levels. We assumed that intuitive choices-due to their affective nature--are faster when multiple options are to be considered. The results show that athletes who had a preference for intuitive decisions made faster and better choices than athletes classified as deliberative decision makers. It is important that experts were more intuitive than near-expert and nonexpert players. The results support a take-the-first heuristic defining how options are searched for, how option generation is stopped, and how an option is chosen. Implications for the training of intuitive decision making are presented.

Language: en