Self Focus Theory Essay

The other Framework of attentional theory used to describe the processes supporting choking is self-focus theory. This theory suggests that pressure increases anxiety, which has been shown to lead to self-focus (Carver & Scheier, 1978). Self-focus can lead to skill failure through attempts to apply conscious thought to automatic movements. In accordance with this assumption is Fitts and Posner’s (1967) progression– regression hypothesis, which discusses the influence of processing changes as a result of the transition though the stages of skill acquisition. Developing performance has been suggested to fundamentally rely on the processing of explicit rule-based knowledge to complete a skill. Researchers have suggested that during the initial
Support for this theory comes from a number of studies in the implicit learning literature, which have shown that providing participants with clear and explicit information can actually degrade performance in comparison to those who learned indirectly (Berry & Broadbent, 1988; Green & Flowers, 1991; Reber, 1976; Reber, Kassin, Lewis & Cantor, 1980). A relatively recent study by Gray (2004), directly investigated the effects of performance pressure on batting performance in skilled baseball players by comparing batting performance between pressure and control groups. Participants in the pressure group were required to perform a second set of trials under the notion that they would receive a reward if they improved their performance. Control participants were given no further instruction during the second set of trials. Batters in the pressure group exhibited clear choking effects making significantly more temporal batting errors following the pressure manipulation than their baseline performance compared to a control group who showed no significant differences between mean errors in the two blocks of