Affective Responses Mediate the Body Language of Penalty Taker - Decision-Making Relationship from Soccer Goalkeepers

Purpose: Previous studies have shown that penalty-takers' body language affects the impressions that goalkeepers form about them and their anticipation performance. This research aimed to replicate these results and test the mediating effect of threat/challenge responses on the relationship between impression formation and the quality of goalkeeper decision-making. Methods and Results: We report 2 experiments. The first showed that participants (goalkeepers) form more positive impressions and have a lower expectation of success from dominant penalty-takers than submissive penalty-takers, and the second showed under pressure conditions that goalkeepers' decision-making was significantly less accurate against dominant players than against submissive players. In addition, we found that the more goalkeepers perceived the penalty-taker as competent, the more threatened they felt; conversely, the less they perceived the penalty-taker as competent, the more challenged they felt. Conclusion: Finally, our analysis showed that participants' cognitive appraisal (challenge vs. threat) influenced the quality of their decision-making and played a partial mediating role in the relationship between impression formation and decision-making.