Priming as a Means of Preventing Skill Failure Under Pressure

Abstract

The present study examined the effectiveness of a priming paradigm in alleviating skill failure under stress. The priming intervention took the form of a scrambled sentence task. Experiment 1: Thirty-four skilled field-hockey players performed a dribbling task in low-and high-pressure situations under single task, skill-focused, and priming conditions. Results revealed a significant increase in performance time from low to high pressure. In addition, performance in the priming condition was significantly better than in the control and skill-focused conditions. Experiment 2: Thirty skilled field-hockey players completed the same dribbling task as in Experiment 1; however, in addition to the control and skill-focused conditions, participants were allocated to either a positive, neutral, or negative priming condition. Results revealed significant improvements in performance time from the skill focus to the control to the priming condition for the positive and neutral groups. For the negative group, times were significantly slower in the priming condition. Results are discussed in terms of utilizing priming in a sporting context. Keywords: choking, skill execution, explicit monitoring, attentionCompetitive environments magnify the importance of doing well and often create considerable pressure for those performing; the ability to deal with these pressures is often reflected in performance. Many performers experience suboptimal performance compared with nonpressure situations, despite having the ability to execute skills successfully (e.g., Lewis & Linder, 1997). The term used to describe this phenomenon is choking (Baumeister, 1984), and has been defined as "the occurrence of inferior performance despite striving and incentives for superior performance" (Baumeister & Showers, 1986, p. 361). There has been increasing interest in the underlying attentional processes of both optimal and suboptimal performance; researchers have demonstrated that the manner in which experienced performers allocate their attentional resources can have an impact on their performance (e.g.,

Music of the night: Performance practitioner considerations for enhancement work in music.

“…20 21 Understanding music's learning culture, milieu, language and systemic hierarchy can render 22 credibility and flexibility to the practitioner. shows that words may also have a psychological impact that can improve or deteriorate 4 performance outcome (e.g., Ashford & Jackson, 2010). It is therefore important to avoid phrasing 5 that might invoke negative associations in musicians.…”

Does Priming Really Put the Gloss on Performance?

“…Collectively, participants reported having a mean of 16.5 years' experience (SD = 7.49 years) ranging from county to international standard. Ashford and Jackson's (2010) hockey-dribbling task was adopted for the study. Participants were required to use an Indian dribble to maneuver a field-hockey ball around a 12-m slalom course, marked out by cones at 1-m intervals.…”

“…Thereby, comparing the conscious technique of imagery (Holmes & Calmels, 2008) through directing thoughts that are task related to performance, to the unconscious priming paradigm promoting automaticity (Bargh et al, 1996;Bruce et al, 2000) employed by Ashford and Jackson (2010). We hypothesized that imagery would be more effective than priming due to the following reasons: Firstly, the majority of priming studies from the social cognition literature have used priming to activate mental or perceptual representations leading to behavior corresponding with specific attributes (e.g., Bry et al, 2008;Dijksterhuis & Van Knippenberg, 1998;Hull et al, 2002).…”

“…However, there were two problems with the otherwise carefully conducted study by Ashford and Jackson (2010). Firstly, the pre-performance priming condition was contrasted with an in-performance, explicit focus condition-a technique seemingly designed to obstruct performance by promoting thinking about the task through explicit instructions (Baumeister, 1984).…”

“…In an application of the priming approach to physical performance, Ashford and Jackson (2010) employed the scrambled sentences method before completion of a hockey-dribbling task. The priming intervention generated superior performance on the hockey-dribbling task, with respect to both outcome (time) and process (technical accuracy) parameters.…”