AUTHOR=Johnston Kathryn , Baker Joseph TITLE=Waste Reduction Strategies: Factors Affecting Talent Wastage and the Efficacy of Talent Selection in Sport JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=10 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02925 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02925 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Coaches are faced with the difficult task of identifying and selecting athletes to their team. Despite its widespread practice in sport, there is still much to learn about improving the identification and selection process. Evidence to date suggests selection decisions (at different competitive levels) can be inaccurate, bias driven, and sometimes even illogical. These mistakes are believed to contribute to “talent wastage,” the effect of a coach’s wrongful selection and/or deselection of an athlete to/from a team. Errors of this scale can lead to negative repercussions for all stakeholders involved and therefore deserve further exploration. It is the purpose of this paper to shed light on the potential factors influencing talent wastage and to illuminate possible psychological pitfalls when making decisions under uncertainty.