Indices of Choking Under Pressure Among Athletes During Competition

Abstract

This study provides information on choking under pressure among university athletes during competition. 300 athletes were sampled and rated on a questionnaire on external and internal perceived sources of choking (alpha = .69 and .72). Analysis indicates a significant difference in mean rating on the two choking indices for men and women athletes. The women's means were higher than the men's but the difference was less than 1.00. Means for four sport groups were similar for the Internal subscale but significantly different on the External subscale.

An Exploratory Pilot Study on Choking Episodes in Archery

“…Female athletes registered higher values of pre-occupation and lower levels of decentralization skills, both variables associated with choking episodes. This result is consistent with the findings of a research on university athletes (Adegbesan, 2007) but not with researches on professional tennis players where, even if women showed a drop in performance in the more crucial stages of the match, it was in any event about 50% smaller than that of men (Cohen-Zada et al, 2017). Gneezy et al (2003) observed that a gender difference in choking was reported when women competed against men but not when they competed in singlesex environments.…”