Reinvestment – the Cause of the Yips?

Abstract

The yips is a multi-etiological phenomenon consisting of involuntary movements during the execution of a skill (e.g., a golf putt). Reinvestment, the conscious control of a movement that detrimentally affects automated movements, is thought to be a potential mechanism leading to the yips. Preventing yips-affected golfers from consciously controlling their movement, therefore, should be beneficial. The aim of the study was to be the first to empirically test in a laboratory whether reinvestment causes the yips and to explore if the tendency to reinvest can explain yips behavior. Nineteen yips-affected golfers participated in a lab experiment. They putted with the dominant arm in a skill-focus and an extraneous condition, in which they had to perform different dual tasks designed either to direct their focus on their own skill or to distract them from it. The tendency to reinvest was estimated via the Movement-Specific Reinvestment Scale. Yips behavior was assessed by putting performance and movement variability. Although the dual-task performance showed that the attentional manipulation worked, the tendency to reinvest did not predict the behavior of the yips-affected golfers in either putting condition. The yips-affected golfers also showed no difference in yips behavior between the skill-focus and the extraneous condition. In other words, the attentional manipulation did not change yips behavior. The data do not support the assumption that there is a link between the yips and reinvestment, likely because of the multi-etiological nature of the yips. Other psychological or neurological mechanisms such as conditioned reactions may better explain the yips and should be investigated.

Personality Predictors of Yips and Choking Susceptibility

“…The current study revealed a prevalence rate of 39.4% for athletes who have experienced yips in golf and archery. This number is consistent with previous research which has suggested prevalence rates of between 16 and 54% (McDaniel's et al, 1989;Smith et al, 2003;Klämpfl et al, 2013a). Although the current rates are consistent with previous literature, the vast difference across studies outlines the potential reliance on researchers to focus on self-report as a mean of identifying yips affected versus using more comprehensive measurements of assessing the prevalence of yips, such as kinematic measurements.…”

“…A potential limitation of the current study was that the classification of both yips and choking was based on selfreport. This is particularly pertinent within the yip's literature as recent research by Klämpfl et al (2013a) suggested that future research should use more objective yips criterion like screening tests to classify athletes. As the current study was investigating psychological traits of individuals with the yips, the use of self-report was considered the most effective and appropriate approach to access a large sample of participants.…”

“…For instance, Lobinger et al (2014) proposed that the yips may be a conditioned reaction to many previous choking experiences or one significant emotion-laden choking experience. This was based on the observation that choking is characterized by an acute incident (i.e., one off) and the yips may represent a more chronic form of choking (Klämpfl et al, 2013a;Lobinger et al, 2014). Therefore, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the yips, it is imperative to explore the role of choking and the yips simultaneously.…”

“…Performance anxiety has been highlighted as an important contributor to the three yips types in the two-dimensional mode (Clarke et al, 2015) and the occurrence of choking (Lobinger et al, 2014). Athletes who have high levels of trait anxiety have also been identified as being more susceptible to choking (e.g., Wilson, 2008), however, this was not the case in those who experienced the yips (e.g., Klämpfl et al, 2013a). Caution is warranted when interpreting these results in the yips study as small sample sizes were recruited that were only powered to detect large effect sizes (n = 24-50).…”

Self-report vs. kinematic screening test: prevalence, demographics, and sports biography of yips-affected golfers

“…Neurophysiological reasons for the yips have been postulated based on its physical manifestation and observed cocontractions, which are similar to those of task-specific focal dystonias (Adler, Crews, Hentz, Smith, & Caviness, 2005;Adler et al, 2011;McDaniel et al, 1989;Sachdev, 1992) such as writer's cramp (Hermsdörfer, Marquardt, Schneider, Fürholzer, & Baur, 2011) or musician's cramp (Altenmueller & Jabusch, 2009). Psychological reasons have been suggested based on the symptoms worsening under stress (Masters & Maxwell, 2008), and the yips has been discussed as a chronic and severe form of choking under pressure (Bawden & Maynard, 2001;Klämpfl, Lobinger, & Raab, 2013a, 2013b) -a drop in performance caused by a perceived mismatch of situational demands and the athlete's own resources to master the situation (Hill, Hanton, Matthews, & Fleming, 2010). A neurophysiological-psychological interaction has also received support (Adler et al, 2005;Smith et al, 2000;Stinear et al, 2006) and is described in the continuum model of Smith et al (2003), placing the origin of the yips between purely neurological and purely psychological.…”