Heavy focus causes cracking under pressure

EAST LANSING, Mich., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Paying too much attention to even a well-rehearsed task may explain why some people "choke" under pressure, according to a new study released Sunday.

Training under pressure, however, might even improve performance for some people.

Researchers Sian L. Beilock and Thomas H. Carr of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. tested to see what exactly causes people to perform badly when required to perform under pressure, despite having had training at practicing the task.

Beilock and Carr took 54 novice student golfers and divided them into three groups, training all of them to perform a challenging golf putting task. But each group trained in different environments. One group trained under normal circumstances, with no additional pressures in place. The second was told to perform the golf putt while simultaneously listening to words on a tape recorder and then repeating those words. The third group had to perform before a video camera and was told golf pros would be reviewing their tapes.

Each group underwent the same low and high-pressure tests. The low-pressure test involved carrying out a series of putts in an environment without distractions. For the high-pressure test, all participants were told they had to improve their putting performances to receive monetary awards and that their partners depended on them to accomplish this goal.

Everyone performed equally well on the low-pressure test, but the groups trained in normal conditions and while having to listen to a tape performed badly -- even worse than they did when training -- during the high-pressure test.

The third group, however, which trained before a video camera, showed improvements on their putting skills during the high-pressure test, researchers report in the December issue of Journal of Experimental Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

The first two groups choked, Beilock explained, because they focused too hard on every step of the performance process. But the third group improved under pressure because their training conditioned them to pressure, therefore they likely paid less attention to every step of performing the putt.

"By putting people under these different training groups from the beginning, we wanted to adapt them to different sorts of mechanisms or attention strategies that these theories are predicting that cause decrements in high pressure situations," Beilock told United Press International. "In tasks such as athletic skills, high-level athletes do not pay attention to every component of their performance. Their performance is what we call "automated."

Training under a more self conscious atmosphere could help make a performance more automatic, Beilock said.

"This isn't necessarily what we would advise for people going into high-pressure situations," she added.

Steven Berglas, a clinical psychologist and an instructor at Anderson School of Management, a business school in Los Angeles, teaches people how to operate in high pressure environments.

It is difficult to minimize a sense of pressure to perform, even self-imposed pressure, particularly in this country, he said.

"There's a culture of pressure in American society," Berglas told UPI, who wrote the book "Reclaiming the Fire, How the Successful Overcome Burnout" (Random House, 2001). "There's a Super Bowl mentality and it's only number one that matters."

There's "real pressure and then there's neurotic pressure" and real pressure isn't necessarily bad, Berglas explained.

Many people, athletes included, train themselves to turn pressures, whether self-imposed or external, into a positive. But even champions struggle wit this balance, he said.

"The culture teaches us winning isn't everything," Berglas said, "it's the only thing."

(Reported by Katrina Woznicki in Washington)