Sports: Men and women react differently to a missing audience

Without an audience, men run slower and women faster: The lack of spectators during the coronavirus pandemic appears to have had a noticeable effect on the performance of athletes at the 2020 Biathlon World Cup, a new study by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in “Psychology of Sport and Exercise” shows. According to the new analysis, women also performed better in complex tasks, such as shooting, when an audience was present while men did not.

Release date: 22 Jun 2021
Source: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg