What is the ‘significance’ of choking in sport? A commentary on Mesagno and Hill

Abstract

Choking, as Mesagno and Hill (2013) acknowledge, is a colloquial term that describes events that sometimes occur in real life when performers are highly motivated to succeed. The term is emotive and evokes strong imagery, so it is popularly used in the media. Use of the term by researchers, however, often raises confusion. Mesagno and Hill point out that current definitions are inadequate and they highlight the need for a clear definition of ‘choking’ in order to help guide researchers in the quest to better understand it as a phenomenon. Psychologists have typically defined choking as under performance in a highly pressured environment when striving for optimal success (e.g., Baumeister, 1984). Such a definition leaves it necessary to determine whether the level of underperformance that occurred was significant enough to warrant use of the term ‘choke’. In sport, the term is typically used when a performer (or a team) fails to win when seemingly in an insurmountable position. The failure needs to result from uncharacteristic mistakes, rather than an opponent’s good skill, but even this can result in confusion. Not only is it often difficult to determine whether the player(s) got worse or the opponent( s) got better, but the two are confounded, for as one gets worse, the other may get better.