Susceptibility to cognitive biases in athlete-team selection

Humans are not immune to cognitive biases in judgment and decision-making. However, little is known about cognitive biases (i.e., a departure from rationality in judgements and decision-making) involved in athlete-team selection by coaches or specialist selectors, which can have a major impact on the team's success. To provide further insight, our research explores the extent to which coaches/selectors perceive they are susceptible to cognitive bias. Twelve national-level coaches/selectors were interviewed (semi-structured) under an interpretive phenomenological research design. Using reflective thematic analysis of the data, we offer three main findings. First, coaches/selectors are susceptible to multi-causal cognitive biases in athlete-team selection. Second, the driving force behind such biases is a phenomenon known as “conflict in cognitive dissonance”. Third, such suboptimal behaviour is perpetuated by the coaches’/selectors’ “oversight of cognitive biases”. We offer a number of policy recommendations that promote effective and unbiased selection processes in sports (and more broadly in society), enhancing equity as well as performance excellence.