Highlights • Penalty-takers` body posture affects the impression formation process. • Confidence in saving penalty kicks is affected by penalty-takers` body posture. • Anticipation of kick direction in a penalty task is influenced by penalty-takers` body posture. Previous research showed that penalty-takers` body language affects the impressions goalkeepers form about them. Furthermore, it is often assumed that body language influences goalkeepers` performance. However, as yet, there is no empirical evidence that indicates whether this latter effect exists. The present research was aimed at replicating and offering more insight in the initial impression formation effects (Experiment 1-3) and providing evidence that signals of dominance and submissiveness affect participants` anticipation performance within a simulated soccer penalty task (Experiment 3). We report three experiments demonstrating that participants form more positive impressions and have less confidence in saving penalty kicks from dominant penalty-takers (or scoring against dominant goalkeepers, Experiment 1) than submissive penalty-takers (goalkeepers). However, we did not find evidence that participants` automatic associations with dominant and submissive players underlie these findings (Experiment 2). Finally, we demonstrate that anticipation of kick direction is influenced by penalty-takers` body language (Experiment 3). Participants performed worse in the simulated soccer penalty task against dominant than submissive penalty-takers. No mediation of impression formation was found.
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