Showing papers by "Roy F. Baumeister published in 1984"

Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance

Abstract: Choking under pressure is defined as performance decrements under circumstances that increase the importance of good or improved performance. A model for choking on coordination and skill tasks is proposed, holding that the pressure increases the conscious attention to the performer's own process of performance and that this increased conscious attention disrupts the automatic or overlearned nature of the execution. Six experiments provided data consistent with this model. Three studies showed that increased attention to one's own process of performance resulted in performance decrements. Three other studies showed similar decrements produced by situational manipulations of pressure (i.e., implicit competition, a cash incentive, and audience-induced pressure). Individuals low in dispositional self-consciousness were shown to be more susceptible to choking under pressure than those high in it.

Paradoxical effects of supportive audiences on performance under pressure: The home field disadvantage in sports championships.

Abstract: On the basis of recent research on self-presentation and self-attention, we predicted that the presence of supportive audiences might be detrimental to performance in some circumstances. Specifically, the imminent opportunity to claim a desired identity in front of a supportive audience might engender a state of self-attentio n that could interfere with the execution of skillful responses. Archival data from championship series in two major league sports supported this reasoning. In baseball's World Series, home teams tend to win early games but lose decisive (final) games. Supplementary analyses suggested that the pattern occurs when the home team has the opportunity to win the championship and that it does involve performance decrements by the home team. Similar patterns were found in semifinal and championship series in professional basketball. The present study concerns whether the presence of supportive versus unsympathetic audiences could interact with opportunities for claiming desired identities to cause paradoxical decrements in the quality of performance. Researchers of self-presentation have used terms such as audience and performance to describe self-presentation ever since Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical analysis of behavior. Our study seeks to test self-presentational hypotheses in the context of actual professional performers and their audiences. We chose professional athletic contests because they provide circumscribed, quantifiable performances and because careful records are generally kept. Our hypotheses were derived by the three steps that follow.

On knowing when to quit: Task failure, self‐esteem, advice, and nonproductive persistence

Abstract: Past research has found the performance of persons with high self-esteem to improve after failure, especially on tasks for which persistence correlates positively with performance. However, persistence may be nonproductive in some situations. Experiment 1 used a task for which persistence and performance were uncorrelated; subjects high in self-esteem persisted longer but performed worse than did those with low self-esteem, particularly after prior failure feedback. Experiment 2 tested whether differential sensitivity to advice about the efficacy of persistence mediates nonproductive persistence. High self-esteem subjects who received explicit advice against nonproductive persistence on a puzzle-solving task still tended to persist longer on unsolvable puzzles than did low self-esteem subjects. The implications of high self-esteem subjects' tendency to engage in nonproductive persistence are discussed.

Effects of personal values, perceived surveillance, and task labels on task preference: The ideology of turning play into work

Abstract: Case Western Reserve UniversityIn Experiment 1, subjects who endorsed the work ethic spent more free-choicetime performing the target activity that had been labeled as "work" than didsubjects who opposed the work ethic The effect was eliminated or reversed if theactivity had been labeled as a leisure pastime. Experiment 2 demonstrated thatthe relation between personal values and task preference was mediated in somesubjects by a belief that the experimenter would know what they did, whereas othersubjects seemed unaffected by that belief. Implications for intrinsic motivation andfor attitude-behavior consistency are discussed In particular, "turning play intowork" by means of explicit labels may increase intrinsic motivation among personswho truly value work.