Emotional body-distant gestures are a prominent feature of winning athletes. Because negative emotions have been associated to increased self-touch behaviour, we investigated the hypothesis that athletes change from a more body-distant nonverbal hand movement behaviour when winning to a body-focused behaviour when losing. Nonverbal hand movements of professional right-handed tennis athletes were videotaped during competition and analyzed by certified raters using the NEUROpsychological GESture(NEUROGES)System. The results showed that losing athletes increase their irregular, on body, and phasic on body hand movements, particularly with the left hand. Emotion / attitude rise gestures with the right hand characterised winning athletes. The data suggest that the nonverbal hand movements of athletes serve different neuropsychological functions. Winners nonverbally express their positive feelings by body-distant gestures but change towards their own body to regulate stress when losing.
Nonverbal movement behavior and emotions are closely linked processes; however, it exists insufficient information about the spontaneous nonverbal expressions in response to experiencing positive and negative emotion, i.e., when winning or losing during sport competitions. Previous research showed that experienced tennis athletes detected losing behavior in athletes more accurately than winning behavior. However, it remained unclear what kind of nonverbal movements characterized losers because the actual movements have not been identified yet. Further research showed that head shaking occurred as an expression of doubt whereas head nodding appeared during successful actions. We therefore hypothesized that losing athletes nonverbally move more, and particularly execute more headshakes when compared to winners. The entire spontaneous nonverbal head movement behavior of professional tennis athletes was video-taped between points during competition and analyzed by two trained and certified raters using a standardized analysis system for nonverbal behavior in relation to won or lost points. The results showed that losers moved their head significantly more often, particularly executing more phasic upward, repetitive sideward (head shaking), and phasic sideward head movements when compared to winning athletes. The present results provide evidence that spontaneous nonverbal head movements differentiate winners from losers during competition. Losing a point in tennis is associated to increased spontaneous head movement behavior, particularly in upward and sideward directions. Thus, we conclude that professional tennis athletes cannot inhibit their implicit nonverbal expressions that are related to negative emotions when losing.
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