An Examination of Ironic Effects in Air-Pistol Shooting under Pressure

Abstract

This study aimed to test the incidence of ironic performance errors in elite air-pistol shooters. Previous research has revealed that, when shooters are anxious, avoidant instructions can cause ironic performance breakdown, especially in the unintended direction. Fifty-seven experienced air-pistol shooters were given specific instructions not to shoot to a certain part of a target, under low- and high-anxiety conditions, respectively. Results demonstrated that, when instructed not to shoot in a specific direction, anxious shooters did so a significant number of times. Interestingly, there was no difference in non-target non-ironic error, which provides specific support for Wegner’s theory of ironic processes of mental control in air-pistol shooting. Consequently, these findings illustrated that the combination of increased anxiety with avoidant instructions could lead to such unintended performance errors, called ironic error. Thus, understanding the mechanism of the anxiety-performance relationship may be a useful theoretical framework which could provide practical, instruction-based interventions to reduce susceptibility to ironic errors under pressure.

The Effects of Avoiding Instructions Under Pressure: An Examination of the Volleyball Serving Task

“…First, our sample size was relatively small and, even though we applied Cohen’s d effect size in order to estimate the sample and also employed repeated measures design, the results should be interpreted with caution. More importantly, the mean age of our participants was relatively low (Mage = 14.53) to compare with previous ironic effects research ( Barlow et al, 2016 , Mage = 22.82; Gray et al, 2017, Mage = 22.6; Gorgulu, 2019 , Mage = 21.02; Gorgulu et al, 2019 , Mage = 22.65; Woodman et al, 2015 , Mage = 20.25) and therefore, it may cause some problems in terms of participants interpretation of the experimental task and conditions. Second, regarding performance in the volleyball serving task, it should be noted that there were no opponent players, which lacks ecological validity.…”

Ironic processes of concentration and suppression under pressure: A study on rifle shooting in Norwegian elite biathletes

“…Conversely, there is conflicting evidence about how exactly negative instructions affect performance. For example, elite pistol shooters 16 and highly skilled dancers 63 showed contradictory motor actions and movements when instructed not to perform specific actions. However, experienced volleyball players did not exhibit this phenomenon 64 .…”

“…More specifically, when instructed "Try not to shoot the right corner of the target," elite pistol shooters precisely shot to the to-be-forbidden spot. 16 This suggests that ironic performance errors arose from a lack of concordance between the athletes' original intention to regulate the unwanted thoughts and their subsequent behaviors. 17 Thus, the reason athletes make ironic performance errors when instructed not to do specific actions is not because of their physical, physiological, and technical limitations, but because they are unable to effectively regulate unwanted thoughts, particularly when their attentional resources are under cognitive strain.…”

“…An illustrative instance involves a tennis player who, during an important Grand Slam, tells himself: “Whatever you do, don't make double fault” during his match point at 30–40, and then he does so, resulting in a defeat in the match (for more examples in the sports world, see 11 (p208) ). More specifically, when instructed “Try not to shoot the right corner of the target,” elite pistol shooters precisely shot to the to‐be‐forbidden spot 16 . This suggests that ironic performance errors arose from a lack of concordance between the athletes' original intention to regulate the unwanted thoughts and their subsequent behaviors 17 .…”