Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 4, 2025
04:30
An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing
Published on: October 25, 2019
5.9K
Relative age effect: beyond the youth phenomenon
Patrick Wakefield Joyner1, John Lewis2, William J Mallon3
1Orthopaedic Surgery, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Virginia, USA.
BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
|October 22, 2020
Summary
The relative age effect (RAE) significantly impacts elite athletes, with those born earlier in the year having an advantage in sports. This effect is prevalent across various Olympic disciplines, highlighting the need for coaches to consider birthdate when evaluating young talent.
Area of Science:
- Sports Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Talent Identification
Background:
- The relative age effect (RAE) describes performance advantages for athletes born in the first quarter of the year within age-restricted sports.
- This advantage stems from increased physical and emotional maturity in relatively older athletes, leading to better developmental opportunities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the prevalence of the relative age effect (RAE) in elite athletes by analyzing the birth distribution of Olympians.
- To determine if the RAE is a ubiquitous phenomenon across different Olympic sports categories.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of birth quarters for over 44,000 Olympic athletes born between 1964 and 1996.
- Comparison of birth date distributions across summer and winter Olympians, and ball/non-ball, team/individual sports.
Main Results:
- Significant differences (p<0.001) were found in birth quarter distributions for summer and winter Olympians, ball and non-ball sports, and team and individual sports.
- The relative age effect (RAE) was observed in Olympic athletes irrespective of gender or sport classification.
Conclusions:
- The relative age effect (RAE) is a general phenomenon present in elite Olympic athletes.
- Coaching staff should consider the RAE when evaluating young athletes' potential and development.
Related Concept Videos
02:20Longitudinal Research
12.9K
Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a decade later at age 30, and then again...
12.9K
01:27Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age
109
Age-related pharmacokinetic changes are extensively documented, but understanding age-related pharmacodynamic alterations is relatively limited. This knowledge gap can be partly attributed to the complexity of developing appropriate measures of drug responses compared to bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations.Most information regarding age-related differences in human pharmacodynamics originates from cross-sectional studies. However, these studies assume that observed mean...
109
01:50Cross-Sectional Research
12.1K
In cross-sectional research, a researcher compares multiple segments of the population at the same time. If they were interested in people's dietary habits, the researcher might directly compare different groups of people by age. Instead of following a group of people for 20 years to see how their dietary habits changed from decade to decade, the researcher would study a group of 20-year-old individuals and compare them to a group of 30-year-old individuals and a group of 40-year-old...
12.1K
01:22Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption
126
As individuals age, their body's physiology evolves, affecting drug pharmacokinetics. The most apparent changes occur in the gastrointestinal tract, where an increase in gastric pH, a delay in gastric emptying, and a reduction in gastrointestinal motility are observed. Remarkably, these changes do not substantially modify the absorption of orally administered drugs, particularly those absorbed via passive diffusion.Transdermal drug delivery emerges as a highly viable method for older adults due...
126
01:24Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
200
A revisionist approach to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development has brought new insights that challenge and reinterpret his established ideas. Piaget proposed that the formal operational stage, emerging in adolescence, represents the culmination of cognitive maturity. During this stage, individuals are said to develop abstract thinking, engage in systematic problem-solving, and show a form of egocentrism, believing others are as preoccupied with their behavior as they are...
200
01:19The Effect of Aging on Tissues
3.0K
Several body functions deteriorate with age. The external signs of aging are easily identifiable. For example, the skin becomes dry, less elastic, and thins out, forming wrinkles. The skin of the face begins to appear looser due to a decrease in the levels of elastic and collagen fibers in the connective tissue. Additionally, melanin production in the hair follicle decreases with age, resulting in gray hair. Moreover, the senses of sight and hearing decline, so glasses and hearing aids may...
3.0K