2 Superability

An interesting question is the extent to which different physical abilities tend to go together in the same people (the general motor ability hypothesis), and the extent to which different athletes have quite different strengths (the specificity hypothesis). Many current researchers tend to believe that there is a superability factor, which has some effect on, but does not directly determine, specific motor abilities. This means essentially that there is a broad tendency for athletes who score highly in one ability also to score highly in others. The existence of superability is linked to the nature–nurture debate, which concerns the extent to which sporting skill is in genes and the extent to which it develops as a result of experience. Those who believe in superability tend to see it as innate, whereas those who place more emphasis on specific skills tend to see them as acquired by experience. These debates have important political dimensions as well as practical applications. The idea of athletes as generally superior by virtue of their genetic make-up makes many of us uncomfortable because of its historical association with extreme right wing politics – this idea of genetic superiority was favoured by Germany and the eugenics movement [4].

Research into expertise in general has tended to find that it is highly domain specific. This means that being good at one thing does not usually mean that one will be equally skilful in other tasks, even those that are superficially similar. This is tricky to reconcile with the belief, widely held amongst athletes and the professionals that work with them, in superability, a general factor or set of factors that underlie athleticism and lead it to generalise from one sport to another. Unfortunately, there is a lack of empirical research into superability, so researchers rely on case examples and critical thinking in order to look at the debate. Much of the reason for the popularity of the idea of superability comes from anecdotal accounts, for example, of school football teams who, come the summer term, turn out also to be the cricket team. On the one hand, in spite of the obviously differing demands of football and cricket, individuals who are fit, quick and well coordinated are advantaged in both sports. On the other hand, the range of social and motivational factors that might also affect the situation should be considered. Those who made it into the football team are probably more likely to have the confidence to try out for the cricket team than other youngsters. They may also have more positive relationships with PE staff, and may even be personally invited to try out for the cricket team. In addition, their general interest in sport will probably have been enhanced by their experience in the football team, and so they will be more likely to be highly motivated to participate also at team level in cricket. Finally, after a season in a cohesive football team, it is likely that many young athletes’ social lives are tied up with the school team [3].

There are thus several good reasons that have nothing to do with ability that might account for the overlap in school team membership. At the elite level, this sort of crossover between different sports is much less common. There are isolated examples of elite athletes that achieved expertise in quite different sports. For example, it was widely believed that the cricketer I. Botham could have had a successful career in professional football, and tennis player M. Wilander went on to become a competent professional golfer. However, there are many other examples of athletes who failed to make this kind of move.

Running through many areas of psychology is the nature–nurture debate. This concerns the extent to which man’s individual characteristics, including abilities, are the product of his genetic make-up (nature) and to what extent they result instead from his experience (nurture). In the same way that many in the sporting community attach great importance to inherent abilities, there is a widespread belief in the overriding importance of innate talent. This assumption is built in to the very language with which ability is discussed – phrases such as ‘gifted’, ‘God-given talent’ and ‘a natural’ all reflect a bias toward the nature side of the argument. However, psychologists should not take such factoids for granted. Actually, the balance of nature and nurture in the development of sporting excellence was much argued about, and in the past decade the balance has shifted away from the nature position toward an emphasis on effective training. On the one hand, there is no doubt that man’s dynamic strength and psychomotor abilities are influenced by his genes – men are not all born equally strong, fast or well coordinated. Moreover, particular, genetically determined physical characteristics are beneficial for particular sports – for example, height for basketball. On the other hand, there is no doubt that investing time in training can also enhance both strength and psychomotor abilities, so there is clearly a role for nurture as well as nature. Perhaps more importantly, sporting expertise is associated as much with expert knowledge of a sport as physical characteristics. It is easy to fall into the trap of watching B.Beckham free-kick or A.Agassi return a serve and thinking that he could never do that[1, p. 171]. However, although researchers might assume that these feats are the result of innate talent, they may, in doing so, underestimate the role of training time and training effectiveness, not to mention other factors such as motivation. As A. Moran points out, some of the feats regularly achieved by elite athletes would be impossible if they relied on physical abilities. For example, top tennis players can return serves that literally travel too fast for the human eye to follow. This is achieved by a learnt strategy – judging the ball’s trajectory by means of the opponent’s body position and limb movements. To what extent the potential to learn to use this type of strategy is genetically influenced is unclear, but research certainly suggests that a great deal of practice is needed. There is an important third argument against the ‘nature’ side of the debate. Contrary to popular belief, there is actually little evidence to suggest that elite athletes generally possess better physical abilities than less successful competitors. In one recent study, for example, W. Williams compared the visual abilities of elite and non-elite child footballers and found no difference between the two groups. Similar findings have emerged on reaction times.