Last Sunday, at the Memorial golf tournament in Dublin, Ohio, Rickie Fowler looked like the man to beat. He entered the tournament with momentum: Fowler had recently gained his first ever P.G.A. tour victory, and he had finished in the top ten in his last four starts. On the first hole of the final round, Fowler sank a fourteen-foot birdie putt, placing him within two shots of the lead.
And that’s when things fell apart. Fowler pulled a shot on the second hole and never recovered. On the next hole, he hit his approach into a greenside bunker and ended up three-putting for a double bogey. He finished with an eighty-four, his worst round on the tour by five shots. Although he began the day in third place, he finished in a tie for fifty-second, sixteen shots behind the winner, Tiger Woods.
In short, Fowler choked. Like LeBron James—who keeps on missing free throws when the game is on the line—he seems to have been undone by the pressure of the situation. And choking isn’t just a hazard for athletes: the condition also afflicts opera singers and actors, hedge-fund traders and chess grandmasters. All of sudden, just when these experts most need to perform, their expertise is lost. The grace of talent disappears.
As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his 2000 article on the psychology of choking, the phenomenon can seem like an amorphous category of failure. Nevertheless, choking is actually triggered by a specific mental mistake: thinking too much. The sequence of events typically goes like this: When people get anxious about performing, they naturally become particularly self-conscious; they begin scrutinizing actions that are best performed on autopilot. The expert golfer, for instance, begins contemplating the details of his swing, making sure that the elbows are tucked and his weight is properly shifted. This kind of deliberation can be lethal for a performer. (...)
Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has documented the choking process in her lab. She uses putting on the golf green as her experimental paradigm. Not surprisingly, Beilock has shown that novice putters hit better shots when they consciously reflect on their actions. By concentrating on their golf game, they can avoid beginner’s mistakes.
A little experience, however, changes everything. After golfers have learned how to putt—once they have memorized the necessary movements—analyzing the stroke is a dangerous waste of time. And this is why, when experienced golfers are forced to think about their swing mechanics, they shank the ball. “We bring expert golfers into our lab, and we tell them to pay attention to a particular part of their swing, and they just screw up,” Beilock says. “When you are at a high level, your skills become somewhat automated. You don’t need to pay attention to every step in what you’re doing.”
But this only raises questions: What triggers all of these extra thoughts? And why does it only happen to some athletes, performers, and students? Everyone gets nervous; not everyone chokes.
by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker | Read more:
Photograph of LeBron James by Jim Rogash/Getty Images.
And that’s when things fell apart. Fowler pulled a shot on the second hole and never recovered. On the next hole, he hit his approach into a greenside bunker and ended up three-putting for a double bogey. He finished with an eighty-four, his worst round on the tour by five shots. Although he began the day in third place, he finished in a tie for fifty-second, sixteen shots behind the winner, Tiger Woods. In short, Fowler choked. Like LeBron James—who keeps on missing free throws when the game is on the line—he seems to have been undone by the pressure of the situation. And choking isn’t just a hazard for athletes: the condition also afflicts opera singers and actors, hedge-fund traders and chess grandmasters. All of sudden, just when these experts most need to perform, their expertise is lost. The grace of talent disappears.
As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his 2000 article on the psychology of choking, the phenomenon can seem like an amorphous category of failure. Nevertheless, choking is actually triggered by a specific mental mistake: thinking too much. The sequence of events typically goes like this: When people get anxious about performing, they naturally become particularly self-conscious; they begin scrutinizing actions that are best performed on autopilot. The expert golfer, for instance, begins contemplating the details of his swing, making sure that the elbows are tucked and his weight is properly shifted. This kind of deliberation can be lethal for a performer. (...)
Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has documented the choking process in her lab. She uses putting on the golf green as her experimental paradigm. Not surprisingly, Beilock has shown that novice putters hit better shots when they consciously reflect on their actions. By concentrating on their golf game, they can avoid beginner’s mistakes.
A little experience, however, changes everything. After golfers have learned how to putt—once they have memorized the necessary movements—analyzing the stroke is a dangerous waste of time. And this is why, when experienced golfers are forced to think about their swing mechanics, they shank the ball. “We bring expert golfers into our lab, and we tell them to pay attention to a particular part of their swing, and they just screw up,” Beilock says. “When you are at a high level, your skills become somewhat automated. You don’t need to pay attention to every step in what you’re doing.”
But this only raises questions: What triggers all of these extra thoughts? And why does it only happen to some athletes, performers, and students? Everyone gets nervous; not everyone chokes.
by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker | Read more:
Photograph of LeBron James by Jim Rogash/Getty Images.
