The Impact Of Fear Of Failure On Choking Under Pressure

Choking under pressure, which is related closely to high-pressure and personality characteristic of athletes, can be defined as performing worse than expected in situations with a high degree of perceived important. The present study investigated the impact of fear of failure on choking under pressure based on distraction model of choking. Attentional process, which concludes focusing on inner thought and focusing on environment, had an impact on choking under pressure. Firstly, we prove that fear of failure has a positive influence on choking under pressure. Then test the impact of self-focus trait and attentional direction on the relation of fear of failure and choking under pressure. We verified the hypothesis by three experiments.Study 1 investigated the influence of fear of failure on choking under pressure. Results show that fear of failure has a positive influence on choking under pressure. Athletes who have high fear of failure perform worse than athletes who have low fear of failure under pressure.Study 2 tests the moderating effect of self-focus in relationship of fear of failure and choking under pressure. Results show that athletes, who has high self-focus trait and high fear of failure would perform worse than the others. And athletes, who has high fear of failure trait, have low self-focus trait perform worse than athletes who have high self-focus trait significantly. But athletes, who has low fear of failure trait, have no significant effect between who have low self-focus trait and who have high self-focus trait.Study 3 discusses the moderating effect of attentional direction in the relationship of fear of failure and choking under pressure. Results show that athletes, who have high fear of failure, perform worse than athletes who have low fear of failure in focusing on body significantly. But fear of failure has different effect on performance under pressure in different attentional direction.The results of three studies show that athletes would prevent choking under pressure when they focus on external. For athletes who have high fear of failure, they would prevent choking under pressure when they have less self-focus trait. However, for athletes who havelow fear of failure, they would prevent choking under pressure when they have more self-focus trait.