Want to psych out your tennis opponent? Stand up straight and dress like a pro.
It takes only sports-specific clothing and confident body language to cause an opponent's resolve to waver, according to a study in the journal Psychology of Sports and Exercise.
Iain Greenlees, a sports psychologist at University College Chichester in the United Kingdom, asked experienced table tennis players to watch videos of potential opponents walking into an arena and performing warm-up exercises. When the on-screen athletes had confident body language—good posture and robust eye contact with the camera—player-viewers felt that they would win fewer games than they would against opponents who slouched and averted their eyes.
Additionally, the athletes felt more confident of beating opponents who wore generic sportswear, like sweatshirts, than opponents who wore sport-specific clothing, like brand-name polo shirts and spiffy shorts.
