Cited by 1,201Sport Psychology and PerformanceMemory Processes and InfluencesCognitive Functions and Memory

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On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?

Beilock, Sian L., Carr, Thomas H.·2001·Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Abstract

Experiments 1-2 examined generic knowledge and episodic memories of putting in novice and expert golfers. Impoverished episodic recollection of specific putts among experts indicated that skilled putting is encoded in a procedural form that supports performance without the need for step-by-step attentional control. According to explicit monitoring theories of choking, such proceduralization makes putting vulnerable to decrements under pressure. Experiments 3-4 examined choking and the ability of training conditions to ameliorate it in putting and a nonproceduralized alphabet arithmetic skill analogous to mental arithmetic. Choking occurred in putting but not alphabet arithmetic. In putting, choking was unchanged by dual-task training but eliminated by self-consciousness training. These findings support explicit monitoring theories of choking and the popular but infrequently tested belief that attending to proceduralized skills hurts performance.

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Cregan, S. C., Toth, A. J., & Campbell, M. J. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1385242 · Cited by 28
Choking and excelling under pressure in experienced classifiers
Worthy, D. A., Markman, A. B., & Maddox, W. T. (2009) · Attention Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/app.71.4.924 · Cited by 22
“Because rule-based tasks are learned via an explicit hypothesis-testing process, the explicit knowledge about the category structure available to participants performing rule-based tasks is much used to study choking under pressure (e.g., Beilock & Carr, 2001; Gray, 2004).”
Influential
The interaction between practice and performance pressure on the planning and control of fast target directed movement
Allsop, J. E., Lawrence, G. P., Gray, R. C., & Khan, M. A. (2016) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-016-0791-0 · Cited by 22
“Whilst both ACT and CPH have received significant empirical support (e.g., Baumeister & Showers, 1986; Beilock & Carr, 2001; Gray, 2004; Langer & Imberm 1979; Lawrence, et al., 2012b; Lewis & Linder, 1997; Masters, 1992; Mullen & Hardy, 2000; Mullen et al., 2005; Wilson, Smith, & Holmes, 2007),…”
Psychological Characteristics of Expert Performers
Jordet, G. (2015) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315776675-10 · Cited by 19
Stop the clock because I can’t stop: time pressure, but not monitoring pressure, impairs response inhibition performance
Endres, D. N., Byrne, K. A., Anaraky, R. G., Adesegun, N., Six, S., & Tibbett, T. P. (2020) · Journal of Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1080/20445911.2020.1810692 · Cited by 21
Needs and incentives as sources of goals.
Gollwitzer, P. M., Kappes, H. B., & Oettingen, G. (2012) · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · Cited by 17
Regulatory fit improves putting in top golfers.
Kutzner, F., Förderer, S., & Plessner, H. (2012) · Sport Exercise and Performance Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0030733 · Cited by 19
Introduction: when embodied cognition and sport psychology team-up
Cappuccio, M. L. (2015) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-015-9415-1 · Cited by 21
Socio-emotional and Self-management Variables in Learning and Assessment
Kyllonen, P. C. (2016) · John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781118956588.ch8 · Cited by 22
The effect of state anxiety on the online and offline control of fast target-directed movements
Lawrence, G. P., Khan, M. A., & Hardy, L. (2012) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-012-0440-1 · Cited by 19
Criteria for performance evaluation
Weiss, D. J., Brennan, K., Thomas, R. P., Kirlik, A., & Miller, S. M. (2009) · Judgment and Decision Making · doi:10.1017/s1930297500002606 · Cited by 18
“We employed a laboratory version of golf putting that has proven useful in understanding skilled performance and its attentional limitations (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Beilock, Carr, MacMahon, & Starkes, 2002; PerkinsCeccato, Passmore, & Lee, 2003).”
I Am Great, but Only When I Also Want to Dominate: Maladaptive Narcissism Moderates the Relationship Between Adaptive Narcissism and Performance Under Pressure
Zhang, S., Roberts, R., Woodman, T., & Cooke, A. (2020) · Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology · doi:10.1123/jsep.2019-0204 · Cited by 18
“The Theory of Reinvestment states that performers 679 under high pressure tend to reinvest attention to task processing through the use of explicit 680 task-relevant knowledge (e.g., Mullen & Hardy, 2000) or step-by-step monitoring (e.g., 681 Beilock & Carr, 2001) to avoid undesired performance.”
Method
Monkeys exhibit a paradoxical decrease in performance in high-stakes scenarios
Smoulder, A. L., Pavlovsky, N., Marino, P. J., Degenhart, A. D., McClain, N. T., Batista, A. P., & Chase, S. M. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2109643118 · Cited by 18
The obligation to succeed when it matters the most–The influence of skill and pressure on the success in football penalty kicks
Brinkschulte, M., Wunderlich, F., Furley, P., & Memmert, D. (2022) · Psychology of sport and exercise · doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2022.102369 · Cited by 18
A Pragmatic Approach to Skill Acquisition for Physical Education: Considering Cognitive and Ecological Dynamics Perspectives
Alali, N. N., Carson, H. J., & Collins, D. J. (2024) · Quest · doi:10.1080/00336297.2023.2298931 · Cited by 28
“For example, Beilock and Carr (2001) found that expert golfers possessed a higher amount of generic technical knowledge in golf putting compared to novices, but relied much less so on it when compared to novices during the golf putt execution.”
Background
Miedo a la evaluación negativa, autoestima y presión psicológica: efectos sobre el rendimiento deportivo en adolescentes
Molina, J., Chorot, P., Valiente, R. M., & Sandín, B. (2014) · Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte · doi:10.4321/s1578-84232014000300007 · Cited by 18
Attachment and Attention in Sport
Forrest, K. A. (2008) · Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology · doi:10.1123/jcsp.2.3.242 · Cited by 18
From clumsy failure to skillful fluency: a phenomenological analysis of and Eastern solution to sport’s choking effect
Ilundáin‐Agurruza, J. (2015) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-014-9408-5 · Cited by 18
“Moe (2005) and Birch (2010) show, as they assess computational claims from the perspective of sport philosophy, that the key challenge is how to account for the need to process countless numbers of items of discrete information in too short an amount of time for explicit symbolic manipulation. Some phenomenological vi…”
BackgroundInfluential
Dynamic Neuro-Cognitive Imagery (DNITM) Improves Developpé Performance, Kinematics, and Mental Imagery Ability in University-Level Dance Students
Abraham, A., Gose, R., Schindler, R., Nelson, B. H., & Hackney, M. E. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00382 · Cited by 18
Lets go surfing now, everybody's learning how; attentional strategies on expert and novice surfing performance under both practice and competition conditions
Lawrence, G. P., Virian, J., Oliver, S. J., & Gottwald, V. M. (2019) · European Journal of Sport Science · doi:10.1080/17461391.2019.1626489 · Cited by 18
“In line with the proposals of theories containing distraction (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Eysenck & Calvo, 1992; Eysenck et al., 2007; Mullen et al., 2005) and self-focus (Baumeister, 1984; Masters, 1992; Masters & Maxwell, 2008; Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016; Wulf et al., 2001), it was hypothesised that…”
Background
A predictive processing theory of motivation
Tate, A. J. M. (2019) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02354-y · Cited by 18
When Practice Fails to Reduce Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot: The Case of Cognitive Load
Singh, B., Axt, J. R., Hudson, S. M., Mellinger, C., Wittenbrink, B., & Correll, J. (2020) · Social Cognition · doi:10.1521/soco.2020.38.6.555 · Cited by 18
Skilled action
Christensen, W. D. (2019) · Philosophy Compass · doi:10.1111/phc3.12631 · Cited by 18
Can the Stereotype Threat and Lift Phenomenon Be Applicable to a Muscular Endurance Task?
Deshayes, M., Zory, R., Seitchik, A. E., Chalabaëv, A., & Clément-Guillotin, C. (2019) · Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport · doi:10.1080/02701367.2019.1668518 · Cited by 18
“In the present research, a non-technical task was used, task that cannot be impacted by explicit monitoring (e.g., Beilock & Carr, 2001).”
Method
„Embodied Cognition”
Beilock, S. L., & Hohmann, T. (2010) · Zeitschrift für Sportpsychologie · doi:10.1026/1612-5010/a000019 · Cited by 18
Self-citation
Skill in Sport
Abernethy, B., Maxwell, J. P., Jackson, R. C., & Masters, R. S. W. (2007) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9780470713181.ch13 · Cited by 17
Attentional Theories of Choking Under Pressure Revisited
Gray, R. (2020) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781119568124.ch28 · Cited by 20
Is monitoring one’s actions causally relevant to choking under pressure?
Montero, B. G. (2014) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-014-9400-0 · Cited by 20
“…or consciously control processes that would normally occur outside of consciousness, and it is the monitoring and conscious control that lead to disaster (Baumeister 1984, Masters 1992, Wulf & Prinz 2001, Beilock & Carr, 2001, 2005, 2007, Beilock & DeCaro, 2007, Ford et al 2005, Beilock 2011).”
Background
A Latent Growth Analysis of Individual Factors Predicting Test Anxiety During the Transition From Elementary to Secondary School
Fréchette-Simard, C., Plante, I., Duchesne, S., & Chaffee, K. (2022) · Journal of Early Adolescence · doi:10.1177/02724316221104198 · Cited by 15
“On the other hand, experimental studies have found that placing a high value on a task might paradoxically produce decrements in cognitive performance, a phenomenon known as “choking under pressure” (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Yu, 2015).”
Background
Dreyfus is right: knowledge-that limits your skill
Cappuccio, M. L. (2023) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04248-6 · Cited by 17
Above Real Time Training for Team Invasion Sport Skills
Lorains, M., MacMahon, C., Ball, K. A., & Mahoney, J. (2011) · International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching · doi:10.1260/1747-9541.6.4.537 · Cited by 17
“The benefit of being able to perform automatically is that performers think less about the skill at hand, and are therefore not ‘over-analysing’ the situation, which can lead to choking and a breakdown of skills [23, 24].”
Factors Related to Choking under Pressure in Sports and the Relationships among Them*
Murayama, T., & Sekiya, H. (2015) · International Journal of Sport and Health Science · doi:10.5432/ijshs.201416 · Cited by 22
“Psychological aspects that have been studied include an increase in anxiety state (Tanaka and Sekiya, 2006), decrease in self-e‹cacy (Williams et al., 2002), changes in perception (Pijpers et al., 2006) and changes in attention (Beilock and Carr, 2001; Lewis and Linder, 1997; Mullen et al., 2005).”
Background

Authors: Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H.
Affiliations: Michigan State University (US)
ORCID: Beilock, Sian L.
Venue: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Published: 2001
Volume: 130
Issue: 4
Pages: 701-725
ISSN: 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
1939-2222
DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.701
OpenAlex: W2151259821
Cited by: 1,201
References: 58
Citations by year: 2026: 82 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 43 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 85 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 52 · 2017: 72 · 2016: 62 · 2015: 67 · 2014: 56 · 2013: 70 · 2012: 58
FWCI: 16.88
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed
Locations: Journal of Experimental Psychology General (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
Keywords: choking under pressure, procedural memory, proceduralization, golf putting, episodic memory, dual-task training, mental arithmetic, attentional control
MeSH terms: Adult, Cognition Disorders, Humans, Psychomotor Performance, Stress, Psychological

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On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?

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