The Expression of Success: Are Thin-Slices of Pre-performance Nonverbal Behavior Prior to Throwing Darts Predictive of Performance in Professional Darts?

Philip Furley,Daniel Memmert

doi:10.1007/s10919-020-00342-2

Philip Furley, Daniel Memmert

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-020-00342-2

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Abstract

The present research attempted to test how skilled people are at predicting perceptual-motor performance of professional darts players based on short observations of pre-performance nonverbal behavior. In four thin-slices experiments (total N = 490) we randomly sampled stimulus material from the 2017 World Championships of Darts showing short video recordings of the players immediately before throwing darts. Participants were asked to estimate the points scored for the respective throws. Results across four experiments, all of which were successfully replicated in direct replication attempts, supported the hypothesis that pre-performance nonverbal behavior of professional darts players gives valid information to observers about subsequent performance tendencies. The present research is the first to show that highly skilled individuals seem to display nonverbal cues that observers can pick up to draw inferences about how these individuals are likely to perform.

Highlights

People are constantly trying to predict how other people are likely to behave
Results in general supported our hypothesis that pre-performance nonverbal behavior in Darts was predictive of performance estimates
That all successfully replicated in direct replication attempts, supported this hypothesis

Summary

Introduction

People are constantly trying to predict how other people are likely to behave. An important source of information in this respect is the momentary nonverbal behavior (e.g., body language, facial expression, etc.) of the target person. The paradigm that is usually used to determine interpersonal sensitivity at the group level (i.e., people, in general, can make these inferences) has been termed thin slices paradigm (Ambady et al 2000; Ambady and Rosenthal 1992; Carney et al 2007) Within this paradigm, participants have to, for example, judge what kind of emotion a target person is displaying (i.e., judging a state) or certain personality characteristics (i.e., judging a trait) and these judgments are subsequently compared to self-report measures of emotions and personality (Hall et al 2008). We are not aware of research that has used the thin-slices paradigm to test accuracy in predicting immediate perceptual-motor performance after short observations of preperformance nonverbal behavior

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