Choking Flashcards
Choking
- recent research in neuroscience and psychology tells us that athletes who view specific scenarios as a threat perform vastly different than athletes who view a similar scenario as a challenge
Study: Jordet and Hartman
Compared:
- the shooter’s team was down by a goal and he had to make the kick to tie; if he mossed, the team would lose
- the shooter’s team was tied, and he did not have to make the shot, but if he did, the team would win the game
Results:
- found that in the first scenario, when missing the kick would cause the team to lose, professional players only converted 62% of those shots.
- however, when conversion would result in a win, kickers were successful 92% of the those shots
- however, when conversion would result in a win, kickers were successful 92% of the time
- same kick, same distance, same target, but a 30% improvement when the player was shooting to win, and not shooting to lose
How to sport psychologists define “choking”?
- choking happens when you are firmly in command of your performance or the competition and you lose because of the change in your mental state
- choking under pressure deceases the standard level of athletic performance, of an athlete when they amt be at their peak performance
- choking is suboptimal performance, not just poor performance. Its a performance that is inferior to what you can do and have cone in the past and occurs when you feel pressure to get everything right
Study: Choking under pressure: The role of fear of negative evaluation
Objective: conceptual models and predictors of choking under pressure have been proposed, but the role of fear of negative evaluation remains largely unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the degree to which fear or negative evaluation may predispose athletes to choking
Method: basketball players participated in completing a set of questionnaires that included Brief FNE-II. based on these scores, they were categorized as either low or high FNE and were selected to performa basketball shots from 5 different areas of the court under low and high pressure phases
Procedure:
- Familiarization: completed CSAI; 10 warm up shots; and 50 regular shots in a low pressure situation - researcher was the only person present
- Low Pressure: identical to familiarization but named differently - participants are generally more nervous when they arrive for a research experiment
High Pressure: performance-contingent monetary incentive - $5 dollars each shot made; video camera and audience presence
Conclusions: FNE is an important psychological characteristic of the choking susceptible
Fear of Negative Evaluation
- predisposes people toward expectations that negative evaluation about public and private aspects of the self will occur
- leads to anxiety
- anxiety unabated by coping skills leads to choking
Study: Anxiety, Attentional Control, and Performance Impairment in Penalty Kicks
Participants:
- fourteen male university standard football players
Design:
Low threat condition
- research was testing the reliability of the calibration of the eye tracker for football tasks
High threat condition:
- made aware of a 50 pound prize for the highest accumulated score; leader board with names would be circulated among participants
Measures:
- State anxiety
- time to first fixation
- total fixation duration
- total number of fixations
- performance
Procedure:
- familiarization: 10 kicks at the target goal without goalie
- fitted with eye-tracker
- 10 kicks in each condition (high vs low)
- kicks were taken 5 m away from target
- used same goalie
Conclusion:
- experienced footballers looked at the goalkeeper significantly earlier and. more often and for longer periods when anxious, with these changes in attentional control negatively influencing resultant shot placement
- findings offer a mechanistic explanation as to why kicks are missed in pressure environments
- interventions that can change this type attention offers promise for assisting athletes deal with pressure moments.
