In sports, choking is the failure of a person, or team, to act or behave as well as anticipated or expected. This can occur in a game or tournament that they are strongly favoured to win, or in an instance where they have a large lead that they squander in the late stages of the event. It can also refer to repeated failures in the same event, or simply imply an unexpected failure when the event is more important than usual.
Most athletes experience physical and mental changes during stages of increased tension in competition. They may change their strategy as a coping mechanism, and play more cautiously as a result. In instances where this strategy fails, a player or team may lose confidence to the point of panic, where they are incapable of completing the most rudimentary of tasks. Choking in sport can be considered a form of analysis paralysis.
The term itself is often an over-used, or even derisive term in the sports world, where "choke" status might be assigned to a team or player that was simply unlucky. A double standard also exists where the choke status is not assigned to players or teams that perform poorly under pressure but are somehow still able to win, but the choke could be assigned to players or teams that perform well under pressure but still lose. The term "clutch" is used to describe the opposite of choking.
Choking Choking under pressure decreases the standard level of athletic performance, of an athlete when they may be at their peak performance. Symptoms of choking may include tightening up of the muscles, an increased level of anxiety and a decrease in self-confidence. Choking can leave an athlete feeling embarrassed or frustrated.
Causes Choking is sometimes caused when an athlete becomes distracted, their thoughts become negative or unproductive and when they worry about things they cannot control. Anxiety is built up from negative self-talk and doubt which leads to choking. The source of the pressure can vary, which leads to the choking itself manifesting in different ways. In some instances a player or team's first game, or a big occasion can lead to anxiety similar to stage fright, which may result in a poor start, or being on the receiving end of a rout. In other instances, the closeness of victory leads to increased anxiety, which may in turn lead to a dramatic loss.
In the chaotic arena of a sporting contest, it is sometimes hard to identify if a player or team has panicked, or was simply victim to a strong finish by their opponents. Many athletes will play down publicly any notion of a loss of nerve, to prevent this being seen as a weakness.
Brain science behind choking The new findings in sport neuroscience suggest that disturbances in neural efficiency and coordination of motor networks could cause pressure choking. Top performers typically have streamlined brain activity compared to amateurs, especially in motor and attentional networks. When pressure is added, however, increased self-monitoring and worry come to change these optimized neural systems, and inefficient motor control results. It is usually noted as changes in brain activity, like increased frontal activation or altered EEG alpha rhythms. Inhibitory control, action prediction, and motor readiness are the key processes of the central nervous system. These are also impaired when an athlete's level of arousal is higher than their optimal level. These findings suggest that choking is not psychological but rather has something to do with the way that the brain handles movement under stress.
Explicit monitoring theory The explicit monitoring theory provides an explanation for athlete's under-performance at the precise moment they need to be at their best. Sian Beilock and Tom Carr suggest that "pressure raises self-consciousness and anxiety about performing correctly, which increases the attention paid to skill processes and their step-by-step control. Attention to execution at this step-by-step level is thought to disrupt well-learned or proceduralized performances."
Distraction theory Distraction theory was first suggested by Wine to explain under-performance in performance pressure situations. Distraction theorists argue that pressure creates a dual task situation which draws attention away from the task at hand. Attention is then focused towards irrelevant stimuli such as worries, social expectations, and anxiety. Wine first tested his hypothesis with academic tests but it has since been applied to athletics.
Research has found that distraction theory is supported in situations where working memory is used to analyze and make decisions quickly. Short-term memory is used to maintain relevant stimuli and block irrelevant information as it relates to the task at hand.Miyake, A., & Shah, P. (1999). Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control. New York: University Press.
A study at Arizona University looked at how athletes of different levels of experiences responded to distraction and self-analysis, and found that novice baseball players were more likely to see a drop in performance from a distracting noise. However, it also found that more experienced players were more susceptible to underperformance when they were asked to focus on their technique.
Self-focus theory This theory predicts a decrease in performance is due to attention being shifted to movement execution. Any combination of factors that increase the importance of performing is considered performance pressure. Baumeister's self-focus theory suggests responding to performance pressure can lead to an increase in self-consciousness which then results in choking. There is more focus on the motor components of performance, consciously controlling movements with step-by-step control.
Processing efficiency theory (PET) Anxiety causes a shift in an athlete's attention towards thought of performance consequences and failure. An increase in worry decreases attention resources. According to PET, athletes put extra effort into their performance when under pressure, to eliminate negative performance. Eysenck and Calvo found processing efficiency is affected by negative anxiety more than performance effectiveness. Efficiency being the relationship between the quality of task performance and the effort spent in task performance.
Attentional control theory (ACT) Eysenck and Calvo developed ACT an extension to PET, hypothesizing an individual shifts attention to irrelevant stimuli. Stress and pressure cause an increase in the stimulus-driven system and a decrease in the goal-directed system. Disruption of balance between these two systems causes the individual to respond to salient stimuli rather than focusing on current goals. ACT identifies the basic central executive functions inhibition and shifting, which are affected by anxiety. Inhibition is the ability to minimize distractions caused from irrelevant stimuli. Shifting requires adapting to changes in attentional control. Shifting back and forth between mental sets due to task demands.
Attentional threshold model According to the attentional threshold model, a performance decrement is caused by exceeded threshold of attentional capacity. This model combines both the self-focus models and the distraction models. The combination of worry and self-focus together causes a decrease in performance. Attentional Threshold Model suggests that choking is a complex process involving cognitive, emotional and attentional factors.
Contributing factors Factors of choking may include, individual responsibility, expectations, poor preparation, self-confidence, physical/mental errors, important games/moments and opponent's actions.
Fear of negative evaluation FNE is a psychological characteristic that increases anxiety under high pressure. It creates apprehension about others' evaluations or expectations of oneself. FNE is similar to motive to avoid failure (MaF). The need to avoid negative evaluation from others, avoid mistakes and avoid negative comparison to other players.
Presence of an audience The presence of parents, coaches, media or scouts can increase pressure leading to choking. An athlete wants to perform their best while being observed and trying not to make any mistakes increases the amount of pressure they are under.
Self-confidence Being over-confident can cause negativity to take over quickly. Not expecting something negative to happen can cause a choke. Having low self-confidence leads to more mistakes, because you do not think you can do anything.
A study done by Wang, Marchant, Morris and Gibbs (2004) found poor performance associated with high self-conscious individuals. An individual with high self-consciousness focuses their attention to thoughts relating to the task (i.e., "did I step right?") and to outside concerns (i.e., "will people laugh if I mess up?"). Individuals with low self-consciousness can direct their attention outward or inward because self-concerns do not dominate their thinking.
Experience and skill A study done by Klein Teeselink, Potter van Loon, Van den Assem and Van Dolder (2018) found that professional darts players are substantially less susceptible of choking than amateurs and youngsters.
Choking and individual zone of optimal functioning According to the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning theory (IZOF), proposed by Russian social and sport psychologist Yuri Hanin as an instance of the earlier-discovered Yerkes–Dodson law, an individual's best performance is when their anxiety level is in a certain zone of optimal state of anxiety or affect. Too much or too little anxiety can lead to performance decrement. Determining athletes' optimal prestart state anxiety level leads to achieving and maintaining that level throughout the performance.
Choking can occur if the athlete is outside their anxiety zone. Programs such as IZOF help identify an athlete's anxiety zone creating a balance between arousal and somatic anxiety. Low arousal can lead to broad attention taking in irrelevant and relevant cues. High arousal can create low attention causing important cues being missed. For example a lacrosse goalie with low arousal may focus more on whether or not a college scout is watching them, rather than focusing on the opponent who is about to score on them. A lacrosse goalie with high arousal may focus more on the opponents stick position instead of the opponent's body position, causing them to step in the wrong direction.
Choking and performance anxiety in male and female athletes There have been a number of studies that investigate performance anxiety in male and female athletes. In a study that investigated performance anxiety with an emphasis on gender and sport played, 601 Portuguese athletes (172 female and 429 male) ranging from ages 12 to 47 competed in a variety of individual and team sports. The athletes competed the Portuguese version of the Sport Anxiety Scale-SAS-2, which had questions that were designed to reflect what young athletes might have felt before or during sports competition. The scale is a measure of sports related anxiety that considers both cognitive and somatic trait anxiety. Some examples of these items that were on the assessment include "My body feels tense" or "I lose focus on the game". A number of statistical analyses were performed to understand the implications of the data and significant differences were noted between male and female athletes. Female athletes presented notably higher levels of general sports anxiety in comparison to the males in the study. The results of this research provided evidence that sport-related anxiety appears in survey results in different magnitudes based on gender, with female athletes being more anxious about their performance.Correia, Marco & Rosado, António. (2019). Anxiety in Athletes: Gender and Type of Sport Differences. International Journal of Psychological Research. 12. 9-17. 10.21500/20112084.3552.