Expertise in sports: reconciling sports sciences with findings from experimental and social psychology and neuroscience

Sports Science is a fairly new and much needed scientific discipline that has been gaining terrain in the scientific community. However, and similarly to other novel disciplines, in order to gain a place as a consolidated scientific discipline, there is a certain need of assertion. Such assertion of a new field of research mainly relies on the development of novel and insightful theories. Nevertheless, the new need not oppose the old, and findings from other, more established fields of research, need not be negated as a form of affirmation of the newer discipline. Take Expertise in Sports. Typically, Sports Science approaches this theme without integrating findings from other areas such as Experimental and Social Psychology and Neuroscience. We suggest that these are but different levels of analysis that can be reconciled and that such reconciliation should render Sports Science a more comprehensive and richer domain.