Why overachievers choke under pressure

Overachievers' high cognitive horsepowers make them more likely to crack in anxiety-inducing circumstances.

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Fri, Oct 22 2010 at 2:14 PM

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Perhaps one of the greatest upsets in golf history happened in the 1966 U.S. Open when legend Arnold Palmer, who was leading by seven strokes, choked in the final nine holes, handing the advantage and ultimate win to Billy Casper.

Even the best players can have a subpar showing on the field. Yet while the sports world is littered with choking incidents like Palmer's, it isn't just athletes who are susceptible to failure in crucial situations. This condition can afflict top students who easily ace every exam but blow the midterm, or a senior vice president who speaks eloquently at conferences but flubs the company seminar.

But why are some high achievers prone to choking?

In "Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To" (Free Press, 2010), Sian Beilock, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, details hers and others' research showing how overachievers are high in cognitive horsepower, making them more likely to choke in anxiety-inducing circumstances.

Brain limits

That high-octane cognition comes from their working memory (linked to a brain region housed in the prefrontal cortex), a type of "mental scratchpad" that allows a person to work with information held in consciousness, Beilock explained. Working memory involves holding information in memory while accomplishing tasks at the same time.

"They feel a lot of pressure to succeed because they have high expectations, but also because they normally rely heavily on working memory that is really compromised under stress," Beilock said.

Although working memory is important for navigating tough reasoning tasks, it is not always optimal to rely on it. In nerve-racking situations, these accomplished individuals may try to manage every little nuance to insure that they come out on top; however, this may result in a negative outcome.

"If you are doing a skill that is better left on autopilot, maybe hitting a putt that we have made a thousand times in the past or giving a speech that we have memorized completely, that kind of control, trying to dissect every word or step can really backfire," Beilock told LiveScience. Essentially there’s not enough brainpower to go around, and so something has to give.

Stereotype threat

Beilock notes that choking can also be attributed to stereotype threats or internalizing negative stereotypes that can affect outcomes in academic and athletic situations.

For instance, she noted findings like a 1995 study by Stanford University psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson in showing subtle tasks, such as indicating your race or gender or listing your socioeconomic status before taking an exam, can significantly influence one’s abilities on that test.

"Small things can be a really big threat on someone's performance," Beilock said, adding that by being aware of these stereotypes is a step toward figuring out how to thwart their effects.

Choking checks

Beilock stresses the importance of role models for empowering those vulnerable to stereotypes like minorities, women and young children. In addition, she suggests exercises, including meditation, writing down worries and self-affirming qualities to combat stereotypes.

These exercises can be practiced daily if that's when a person feels threatened, or just before key events like exams, athletic competitions and speeches.

"These positive qualities are enough to take some of the pressure off of some of these stereotypes that might weigh on their shoulders all the time," Beilock said. "You get into this recursive cycle where if [children] can perform just a little better once, that gives them a bit more confidence in their ability next time around."

As for the Palmer types, her book suggests techniques like practicing under conditions that mirror some of the stress athletes face on game day, including videotaping training sessions and focusing on strategy (what to do) instead of technique (how to do it) — i.e. getting in the zone, not your head.

"Playing 'out of one's mind,' so to speak, is likely one of the reasons that professional athletes don’t often give the most informative interviews after their big game," she wrote. "Because these athletes operate at their best when they are not thinking about every step of performance, they find it difficult to get back inside their heads to reflect on what they just did."

This article was reprinted with permission from LiveScience.

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Comment: 1

T. Lavon Lawrence Oct 22 2010 at 6:00 PM

According to the impression gotten from this publication, we need to start training people to perform better under pressure by allowing their cognitive skills to go downhill. My experience with thousands of mental fitness trainees - and neuroscience itself - begs to differ. Cognitive inflexiblity along with its attendant anxiety at unique, novel, challenging scenarios is NOT a characteristic of high levels of attention control. Cognitive flexibility and creative problem-solving require the ability

.... More

to broaden AND narrow attention at will, something weak working memory victims have less power to do at will. Every day I'm involved with training hundreds of people with attention problems, and they don't find the so-called benefits listed here to outweigh the overall problems that are part and parcel of weak working memory function combined with weak attention control. The more they train their attention, the better they become in all areas. Neuroscience has already established the fact that low working memory and weak attention control go hand in hand, just as it has well-established the fact that weak attention skills and low working memory are evidenced by an increased prominence of error and misjudgment. To know which is of greater overall benefit, all one has to do is look around one when driving on the highway to see who is putting fellow drivers at greater risk - is it the person who's paying attention, keeping an eye out for environmental shifts (high working memory usage), and making proper adjustments in speed and direction; or, is it the person who's not paying attention, fiddling with the 6-deck cd player while texting their friends and attempting to wolf down a value meal while oblivious to impending environmental dangers (low working memory usage). Apparently, the study authors misunderstands the concept of 'Attention Control', mistakenly associating COMPULSIVE attention to Voluntary attention, rather than to Involuntary Attention where it should be associated, the characteristics of which include compulsive, or even "Hyper" focus. The concept of being unable to execute the attention function as needed cannot be synonymous with the concept of greater attention control. People who suffer 'HYPER-FOCUS' are not engaging in voluntary attention "CONTROL", nor do they demonstrate a higher working memory capacity. Higher working memory is characterized in neuroscience as being evidenced by better attention control, not worse. Higher levels of attention control (which according to neuroscience is coupled with better working memory) are characterized as evidencing better self-control, not worse self control.

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