- Title
- Performing under pressure in private : Activation of self-focus traits
- Creator
- Geukes, Katharina; Mesagno, Christopher; Hanrahan, Stephanie; Kellmann, Michael
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/66398
- Identifier
- vital:4915
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2012.724195
- Identifier
- ISSN:1612-197x
- Abstract
- Self-focus and self-presentation traits have been found to predict performance under pressure. The interactionist principle of trait activation indicates that situational demands encourage different traits to be relevant to performance in high-pressure situations. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship of self-focus and self-presentation traits with performance in a private high-pressure setting. Because the private high-pressure situation offered motivational incentives but only minimal self-presentation cues, only a self-focus trait (private self-consciousness), but not self-presentation traits (public self-consciousness and narcissism), was hypothesized to predict performance under pressure in a private setting. After completing personality questionnaires, future physical education university students (N = 59) with experience in sport competitions performed eight throws at a target in low-pressure and high-pressure conditions. The conditions were identical with the exception that the high-pressure condition involved a monetary incentive and a cover story. Participants' state anxiety increased from low to high pressure. Neither self-focus nor self-presentation traits predicted performance under low pressure. Only the self-focus trait, but not self-presentation traits, negatively contributed to the prediction of high-pressure performance. Hence, findings support the applicability of the trait activation principle and underline that the situational demands of private high-pressure situations activate self-focus personality traits. © 2013 Copyright International Society of Sport Psychology.
- Relation
- International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Vol. 11, no. 1 (2013), p. 11-23
- Rights
- Copyright 2013 International Society of Sport Psychology
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Choking under pressure; Narcissism; Person-situation interaction; Self-consciousness; Self-presentation; 1701 Psychology; 1702 Cognitive Science; 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy
- Full Text
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