What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization, Predicts World-Class Performance

What explains the acquisition of exceptional human performance? Does a focus on intensive specialized practice facilitate excellence, or is a multidisciplinary practice background better? We investigated this question in sports. Our meta-analysis involved 51 international study reports with 477 effe...

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Veröffentlicht in:Perspectives on psychological science Jg. 17; H. 1; S. 6 - 29
Hauptverfasser: Güllich, Arne, Macnamara, Brooke N., Hambrick, David Z.
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2022
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Schlagworte:
Adolescent
Adult
Athletes
Athletes - psychology
Child
Childhood
Games
High Achievement
Human performance
Humans
Low Achievement
Meta Analysis
Multidisciplinary practices
Predictor Variables
Risk Factors
Specialization
Sports
Sustainable development
Winners
Youth
meta-analysis
practice
performance
early specialization
skill acquisition
ISSN:1745-6916, 1745-6924, 1745-6924
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Zusammenfassung:What explains the acquisition of exceptional human performance? Does a focus on intensive specialized practice facilitate excellence, or is a multidisciplinary practice background better? We investigated this question in sports. Our meta-analysis involved 51 international study reports with 477 effect sizes from 6,096 athletes, including 772 of the world’s top performers. Predictor variables included starting age, age of reaching defined performance milestones, and amounts of coach-led practice and youth-led play (e.g., pickup games) in the athlete’s respective main sport and in other sports. Analyses revealed that (a) adult world-class athletes engaged in more childhood/adolescent multisport practice, started their main sport later, accumulated less main-sport practice, and initially progressed more slowly than did national-class athletes; (b) higher performing youth athletes started playing their main sport earlier, engaged in more main-sport practice but less other-sports practice, and had faster initial progress than did lower performing youth athletes; and (c) youth-led play in any sport had negligible effects on both youth and adult performance. We illustrate parallels from science: Nobel laureates had multidisciplinary study/working experience and slower early progress than did national-level award winners. The findings suggest that variable, multidisciplinary practice experiences are associated with gradual initial discipline-specific progress but greater sustainability of long-term development of excellence.
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ISSN:1745-6916
1745-6924
1745-6924
DOI:10.1177/1745691620974772