Alleviating choking : The sounds of distraction
- Authors: Mesagno, Christopher , Marchant, Daryl , Morris, Tony
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Applied Sport Psychology Vol. 21, no. 2 (2009), p. 131-147
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- Description: Choking is defined as a critical deterioration in the execution of habitual processes as a result of an elevation in anxiety levels under perceived pressure, leading to substandard performance. In the current study, music was used in a dual-task paradigm to facilitate performance under pressure. Three choking-susceptible experienced female basketball players were purposively sampled from 41 screened players. Participants completed 240 basketball free throws in a single-case A1-B1-A2-B2 design (A phases = low-pressure and B phases = high-pressure), with the music intervention occurring during the B2 phase. Following completion of the phases, an interview was conducted to examine perceptions of choking and cognitions associated with the effects of the music lyrics. Participants improved performance in the B2 phase, and explained that choking resulted from an increase in public self-awareness (S-A). The music intervention decreased S-A, and enabled participants to minimize explicit monitoring of execution and reduce general distractibility.
Competitive pressure and decision-making accuracy in a video-based simulation of soccer
- Authors: Mesagno, Christopher , Spittle, Michael , McNeil, Dominic
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at 43rd Annual Conference of the Australian Psychological Society, Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart, Tasmania : 23rd-26th September 2008
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- Description: Perceptual-cognitive skills and decision-making in sport have typically been explored using videobased protocols in settings where participants are not exposed to the type of competitive pressures that characterise a game situation. Consequently, this study aimed to investigate the influence of competitive pressure, or competitive anxiety, on decision-making accuracy. Seventy-seven (Male=44, Female=33) undergraduate students with mean age of 20.16 years (SD = 3.18) were randomly assigned to an experimental (n=56) or control group (n=21) and completed a video–based perceptual decision-making test of 25 temporally occluded offensive soccer plays. Participants in the experimental group completed the test with and without competitive pressure conditions. Pressure was manipulated by introducing a competition for a monetary prize. Participants in the control condition completed the test twice without competition. All participants completed a state anxiety measure prior to each test. The competition produced significantly higher cognitive anxiety than no competition; however, this was not reflected in any significant differences in decisionmaking accuracy. Although not statistically significant, more experienced performers tended to score more accurately with competitive pressure.
- Description: 2003007671
Choking under pressure : A review of current debates, literature, and interventions
- Authors: Mesagno, Christopher , Geukes, Katharina , Larkin, Paul
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Contemporary Advances in Sport Psychology : A review p. 148-174
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- Description: Athletes who "crumble" under the pressure of competition are often defamed, embarrassed, and sometimes ostracized from the sportinf community. One Australian elite rower, Sally Robbins, was heavily shunned and vilified by the media and rowin community for a potential choking under pressure episode. Sally was a member of the Australian Women's Eight rowing team competing in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics. With 500 meters to complete the race and the team in medal contention, Sally stopped rowing, collapsing in the lap of one of her teammates, with her oar dragging in the water because of intense exhaustion, with the team finishing in last place. This episode may have been exacerbated by the reported intense anxiety she was experiencing prior to the well-publicized Olympic final. In fact, this was not the first time extreme anxiety and concomitant exhaustion had befallen on Sally with reports suggesting perhaps it happened up to nine times previously (Wilkins, 2008). After that event, "Lay down Sally (as she was quickly labeled by Australian media and public) ... was derided as a quitter and labeled un-Australian.... The lay down Sally affair ended in misery, defamation lawsuits and recriminations" (Davis, 2008, p.98). This type of incidence has led to media speculation about choking so often that Davis (2008), an Australian magazine editor and newpaper reporter, wrote a book explaining many potential choking incidences from elite international competitions. Some choking incidences are more easily detectable than others. For example, tennis player Jana Novotna played Steffi Graf in the 1993 Wimbledon women's final, led the match 6-7, 6-4, and had a game point at 4-1 in the third and final set. Novotna lost the game and Steffi Graf won the final five games of the match and the Grand Slam title. Professional golfers Jean Van de Velde and Greg Norman also squandered leads to lose major championships, but in different ways. Van de Velde drastically "lost the plot" in the 1999 British Open after leading the tournament over 71 holes with a 3-shot lead going into the final hole. Off the tee, each of his shots went into the rough, hit the grandstand, in a water hazard, into the greenside bunker, on the green and finally in the hole for a triple bogey and tie for the lead. Van de Velde eventually lost in a three-person playoff. Greg Norman's 1996 U.S. Masters choking episode was similar because a large lead (i.e. six strokes) diminished, however, this occurred in a round-long (rather than an acute one-hole) collapse and eventual loss to Nick Faldo by five strokes. One reason these situations could be classified as choking episodes is they were based on the person's normal standard of play, rather than on other's success. For example, Novotna's performance deterioration was credited for the choking incident and not because Graf played exceptionally well in the last set to win the tournament. Nevertheless, some researchers (e.g. Buszard