was postulated to reflect a neurological condition called “dystonia” in which a
deterioration occurs in the motor pathways involving the basal ganglia. On the other
hand, the yips “type 2” probably results from severe performance anxiety or choking.
Interestingly, these authors speculated that golfers who suffer from the neurologically
mediated type 1 yips may have to learn a new stance or else switch to a longer putter as
the prognosis for this condition is poor.
What causes choking in sport?In contemporary sport psychology, choking is regarded as an anxiety-based attentional
difficulty (see also Chapter 4) rather than as a personality problem. This distinction is
important because it suggests that the propensity to choke is not a character flaw but a
cognitive problem arising from an interaction between anxiety and attention. If this
attentional perspective is correct, then any athlete, regardless of his or her personality,
can choke if s/he concentrates on the “wrong” target—anything which is outside his or
her control or which is irrelevant to the task at hand. But what psychological mechanisms
could underlie this choking effect?
According to Graydon (2002), two main theoretical accounts of choking have been
postulated in recent years—the “self-consciousness” approach (Baumeister, 1984;
Baumeister and Showers, 1986) and “processing efficiency” theory (Eysenck and Calvo,
1992). According to the self-consciousness model, when people experience a great deal
of pressure to perform well they tend to think more about themselves and the importance
of the event in which they are competing than they would normally. This excessive self-
consciousness causes people to attempt to gain conscious control over previously
automatic skills—just as a novice would do. As a result of this attempt to invest
automatic processes with conscious control, skilled performance tends to unravel.
According to some athletes, this unravelling of skill may be caused by thinking too much
as one gets older. For example, consider Ian Woosnam’s experience of trying to correct
his putting stroke in golf. In particular, he said that “putting shouldn’t be hard...but that’s
where the mind comes in. So much is running through your mind—hold it this way, keep
the blade square—whereas when you’re young, you just get hold of it and hit it. When
you get old too much goes through your mind” (cited in White, 2002b, p. 22). This self-
consciousness approach is similar to the conscious processing hypothesis (Masters, 1992)
discussed in the previous section. Indeed, this latter hypothesis suggests that under
pressure, “the individual begins thinking about how he or she is executing the skill, and
endeavours to operate it with his or her explicit knowledge of its mechanics” (Masters,
1992, p. 345).
The second theoretical approach to choking, which is called processing efficiency
theory (Eysenck and Calvo, 1992), suggests that anxious athletes may try to maintain
their level of performance by investing extra effort in it. Although this increased effort
investment may appear to generate immediate benefits, it soon reaches a point of
diminishing returns. At this stage, the athlete may conclude that too much effort is
required and so, s/he gives up. At that point, his or her performance deteriorates rapidly.
Unfortunately, as Graydon (2002) pointed out, this theory is hampered by the difficulty
of measuring mental effort objectively. For a brief account of psychological explanations
of choking, see Box 3.5.
"Psyching up" and "calming down": anxiety in sport 87