Gunslinger Effect
A finding in motor neuroscience that reactive movements are executed roughly 10% faster than self-initiated ones — the person who draws second in a duel moves more quickly, even though they still usually lose due to the delay of reacting.
EverydayConcepts.io
Origin
Inspired by an anecdote about physicist Niels Bohr, who after watching a Western film with George Gamow, argued that the hero's reactive draw would be faster than the villain's deliberate one — then proved it in a toy-pistol duel the next day. In 2010, Andrew Welchman and colleagues at the University of Birmingham confirmed the reactive advantage experimentally, publishing their results in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Updated June 12, 2018