Performance Under
Pressure
Research Article Summaries
Description: This is a collection of summaries of research articles related to performance under pressure! It's not completely comprehensive, but it's a start towards centralizing some of this information.
(#1)
Title: Who Chokes Under
Pressure? The Big Five Personality Traits and Decision-Making under Pressure (2014)
Author(s): Kaileigh
A. Byrne, Crina D. Silasi-Mansat, and Darrell A. Worthy
Relevant Findings: Of the “Big Five” (i.e., the five major dimensions into which
modern psychology separates personality traits), the two traits most associated
with choking under pressure were neuroticism and agreeability. Both were shown
to negatively influence performance.
(#2)
Title: Who
Thrives Under Pressure? Predicting the Performance of Elite Academy Cricketers
Using the Cardiovascular Indicators of Challenge and Threat States (2013)
Author(s): Martin
J. Turner, Marc V. Jones, David Sheffield, Matthew J. Slater, Jamie B. Barker,
and James J. Bell
Relevant Findings: Perceiving things as challenges (rather than threats) prevents
performance loss from choking under pressure. However, it’s noted that the
challenge mindset is not something into which is easily entered, and no method
for this is suggested.
(#3)
Title:
Working Memory Capacity, Controlled Attention and Aiming Performance Under
Pressure (2016)
Author(s): Greg
Wood, Samuel J. Vine, and Mark R. Wilson
Relevant Findings: Working Memory Capacity (WMC) can be a limiting factor in
attentional control. High-WMC individuals did not experience impaired
attention while under threat, while low-WMC individuals did experience
impaired attention.
Speculation: There may be a point of critical mass, metaphorically speaking, at which WMC becomes large enough to mediate between attention to a threat and attention to a task long enough to become re-immersed in the non-threat task (as a cascade of attentional resources become devoted to a task). Without being able to mediate attention in this situation, the lower WMC individual might compensate by defaulting to a panic network of thought and action (evolutionarily speaking, this would be the better option).
Speculation: There may be a point of critical mass, metaphorically speaking, at which WMC becomes large enough to mediate between attention to a threat and attention to a task long enough to become re-immersed in the non-threat task (as a cascade of attentional resources become devoted to a task). Without being able to mediate attention in this situation, the lower WMC individual might compensate by defaulting to a panic network of thought and action (evolutionarily speaking, this would be the better option).
(#4)
Title: Priming as a Means
of Preventing Skill Failure Under Pressure (2010)
Author(s): Kelly
J. Ashford and Robin C. Jackson
Relevant Findings: Positive priming prevents performance degradation, while negative
priming promotes performance degradation. (The well-grounded assumption being
that the more an individual pays attention to their performance of a motor
task, the more this attention interferes with that performance)
Referential Claims: There is some evidence that engaging in a concurrent secondary
task while performing a motor task is effective in reducing the cognitive
interference associated with skill-focused attention and can actually improve
performance (e.g., Beilock, Carr, et al., 2002; Jackson et al., 2006; Maxwell
et al., 2000).
[E]vidence suggests that individuals who
acquire a large pool of explicit knowledge during learning are susceptible to
performance decrements under pressure (Liao & Masters, 2002).
[S]kills acquired in an environment that
limits explicit knowledge results in robustness under pressure (e.g., Hardy,
Mullen, & Jones, 1996; Masters, 1992; Maxwell, Masters, & Eves, 2000).
[I]t has been suggested that skills learned
and practiced in conditions that engender a high degree of self-focus would be
more resilient to the detrimental effects of stress (Liao & Masters, 2002).
Research conducted by Lewis and Linder (1997)
and Beilock and Carr (2001) demonstrated that learning a skill in the presence
of a camera led to a stress resistant performance that eliminated the
occurrence of choking.
(#5)
Title: Choking under
pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful
performance (1984)
Author(s): Baumeister,
R. F. (O.G. paper)
Relevant Findings: Initial theory behind choking is put forward (conscious processes
interfere with automatic ones).
(#6)
Title: Managing pressure at
the free-throw line: Perceptions of elite basketball players (2018)
Author(s): Rouhollah
Maher, Daryl Marchant, Tony Morris, and Fatemeh Fazel
Relevant Findings: It can affect players of any skill level, even
professionals.
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