Psychological Mechanism Of Choking Of Adolescent Basketball Players Under Pressure

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Abstract

Choking is used to describe athletes’ performance decrease under pressure. It usually occurs at a critical moment or important competition，and characterized by increasing the occurrence of a number of mistakes should not happen under pressures. The article used field experimental method ，selected 78 basketball athletes and 30 university students as participants. Study 1 tested the expert and novice’s movement performance difference at different attention direction; Study 2 tested athlete’s phenomenon of choking under pressure; Study 3 tested the relations between athlete’s choking and the person – ality characteristic under pressures. Experiment result was consistent with hypothesis，base on the experiment result，theoretical discussion is carried out.

Sports psychologists refer to the phenomenon of “Choking” in sports competitions. The “Choking” phenomenon under pressure is defined as the phenomenon that the customary exercise process decays, usually at the critical moments of the game or in major competitions. The main manifestation is that the athletes have some mistakes that should not occur under the pressure increase[1-2]. Baumeister was the first to conduct a systematic study of “Choking” using experimental methods. The experiment used “hand-controlled rolling” as a test task, and designed six consecutive experiments to examine the effect of consciousness control on operational performance and the relationship between personality self-awareness and “Choking”. The results showed that the subjects with attention to hand control were significantly lower than those who were aware of ball control; under stress conditions, subjects with weak self-awareness were more likely to “Choking” than those with strong self-awareness [2] . Chinese scholar Wang Jin used the basketball penalty basket as a test task and designed three consecutive experiments to examine the influence of consciousness control on athletic performance. The pressure increased the influence of self-attention on sports performance and the relationship between self-awareness, trait anxiety and “Choking”. The results show that for high-level basketball players, attention to the movement of the exercise process leads to a decline in athletic performance; Self-attention related stress caused the subjects to “Choking”; individuals with strong self-awareness were more likely to “Choking” under stress conditions than individuals with weak self-awareness [1]. From the results of previous research and actual cases, the Choking phenomenon mainly occurs in sports with high technical content. Therefore, this study used basketball penalty baskets as a test task. ‘Interference theory’ believes that Choking occurs because attention shifts to irrelevant information; and ‘external control theory’ believes that Choking occurs because self-consciousness causes attention to turn to specific task execution process, thereby disrupting the smooth execution of the exercise process. Sex. Obviously, these studies ignore the skill level of the participants. For athletes with high motor skills, paying attention to the specific implementation process will cause the automatic execution of skills to be blocked. For athletes with low motor skills, the skills will not reach the level of automation, pay attention to the steering. The specific implementation process will not hinder the execution of automation. In addition, the stress situation set by the previous research (such as in the instructional language to the athletes that many viewers are present to watch his movements, but no actual audience is present; or to explain to the athletes that their actions are about to be recorded and submitted to experts for analysis And money rewards, etc.) is far from the stress situation of the actual game [1-4]. In order to understand more clearly the mechanism of the Choking phenomenon, two consecutive experiments were used in this paper. Firstly, the high-tech basketball penalty basket is used as a test task (this is a closed technique, which is relatively easy to control). Secondly, high-level basketball players with a certain training period and non-sports professional basketball general students are selected as research objects; An effective stress scenario. The specific content of this study is as follows: Study 1 Whether the test pays attention to the specific implementation process will lead to the decline of the test results of different technical levels; Study 2 test competition pressure causes Choking phenomenon;

Differences in sports performance between experts and novices with different attention points

External control theory believes that when the attention of the athlete turns to the specific task execution process, it will destroy the smoothness of the exercise execution process and cause “Choking”. However, for subjects with lower levels of motor skills, because their skills are not automated, it is often necessary to focus on the implementation of the technology. This study was designed to test the performance of this phenomenon in both experts and novices.

Research methods

Participants in the test group

18 male and female basketball players from a large school team (9 male athletes, 9 female athletes), aged 18 to 26 years old, all participated in the provincial level. Basketball game. The average training period is 6.5 years and the standard deviation is 1.8. The exercise levels are Level 1 and Level 2, respectively. Participants in the novice group selected 30 students (20 males, 10 females, aged 19 to 22 years) in the second year of a university. They had no basketball training experience in the past and are taking basketball general courses.

Test Mission Basketball free throws were used in this test.

The basketball penalty basket is a highly technical motor skill that requires coordination throughout the body. This technique involves the cooperation of knees, shoulders, elbows and wrists, especially the combination of wrist and finger movements, which has a great influence on the accuracy of the penalty basket. For high-level athletes, there are even behavioral procedures. Leith L M, Wang Jin used the basketball shooting technique to successfully test and observe the “Choking” phenomenon [1, 5].

Test design

Expert group trial design: due to the smaller test sample of this group (18 persons) Therefore, this study is suitable for small sample design. This study used a reversed design in a small sample design, the ABA design. The basic idea is to first obtain the baseline value of the behavior of the subject; then introduce the independent variable and observe the behavior change of the subject; finally, reverse the experimental condition to the original baseline state, and measure the behavior again [6]. The experimental design of the novice group: Due to the low level of technical skills in this group, the skills are in the generalization stage and the stability of the operation is poor. Therefore, this study uses a completely randomized inter-group test design. Thirty subjects were randomly divided into 2 groups, one group as the test group and the other group as the control group. There were 15 participants in each group, male = 10 and female = 5, and there was no difference between the two groups in terms of age and technical level. The test group was subjected to test treatment and the control group was not subjected to test treatment.

Test procedure

Expert group: Select a closed indoor basketball hall (when tested, unrelated people can’t see it). After the participants came to the test site, they were organized by coaches or teachers. Then proceed for 15 minutes of preparation. After the preparation activities are completed, the following steps are taken: the participants perform a baseline test of 20 sets of free throws. Before the baseline test, the tester (professional basketball coach) did not make any technical tips and only told the participants to do their best. After completing the baseline test, leave the test venue and rest for 30 minutes before returning to the test venue. Similarly, the participants were given 15 minutes of preparatory activities and then a set of 20 free throw test tests. Again, tell the participants to try their best before the test. However, the tester also specially guided the participants to focus on the movements of the wrists, elbows and shoulders and asked the participants to meditation on the specific process of the free throw technique (the more specific the better). At each stroke, the subject is required to pay special attention to the movement of the shoulders, elbows and wrists. After the second test, the subjects left the test site again, rested for 30 minutes and returned to the test site for the third test. The third test is the same as the first test without any technical guidance.

Novice group: The test venue is the same as above. Among them, the novice test group accepted the first and second free throw test conducted by the above-mentioned expert group. The novice control team completed the first free throw test of the above-mentioned expert group. The preparation activities and breaks are the same as the expert group.

Analysis of results

Analysis of the test results of the expert group

The scores of the panelists were calculated by the number of free throws (see Table 1). In order to confirm whether the decline in the performance of the participants was due to the special attention to the execution of the action, we used a one-way analysis of variance for these scores (see Table 2). It can be seen from Table 2 that there is a significant difference in the scores of the three tests (significance coefficient is 0.001). Explain that the test treatment is effective. To further understand the specific differences between the three tests, we performed multiple comparisons (see Table 3). As can be seen from Table 3, there is a significant difference between the first test and the second test (significance coefficient is 0.038); there is no significant difference between the first test and the third test (significant The coefficient is 0.757). In other words, the decline in the scores of the tester’s free throws should be due to the shifting of their attention to the specific action execution process during the execution of the mission. This is consistent with previous research conclusions [7].

Analysis of the test results of the novice group

As can be seen from Table 4, the novice’s penalty basket scores are relatively low, and the skills are in the generalization stage, which is in line with our test requirements. In addition, there was no significant difference in the baseline scores of the novice test group and control, and it can be considered that there is no difference in the technical level.

It can be seen from the results in Table 5 that although the first test and the second test scores of the test group did not reach significant differences, they were close to the significant difference (significance coefficient is 0.078), and the average of the second test scores. The number has increased by one than the first time. Explain that the test group members intentionally controlled their free throwing movements after obtaining the information that the tester requested to pay attention to the specific actions, which resulted in a significant

Discussion

Differences in operational performance of subjects at the technical level. The test results show that when high-level basketball players focus their attention on the execution of the free-throwing action, their free-throw percentage has dropped significantly [9]. When he or she is asked not to focus on the specific execution of the free throw, his or her free throw percentage returns to the first test level, even better than the first. The reason may be that the penalty shot technology of the expert group is quite mature, there is no need to do any technical guidance, and there is no need to focus on the specific execution action, when it is required to turn to the specific execution action. The automated execution program that destroyed its original technology disrupted the rhythm of its movement. When the third test was performed, since the automatic execution of the action program was resumed because the attention was not required to be focused on the specific execution action, the penalty shot performance was significantly improved. After the trial, we interviewed these athletes and asked if they knew why the second test score would drop. They replied: ‘Because you want to focus on the specific execution actions, it has destroyed him or her. The structure of the action disrupts the rhythm of his or hers. This is basically consistent with our theoretical assumptions and is consistent with previous research [1, 8].

For the low-level novices in the experimental group, when they were asked to focus on the specific execution of the penalty basket, the penalty basket scores were significantly improved compared with the first test, almost reaching a significant level. For the low-level novices in the control group who did not provide technical guidance and focused on the specific execution of the penalty basket, there was no significant difference in the two free-throw results. Comparing the results of the second test of the novices in the test group and the newcomers in the control group, it was found that the free throw scores of the test group were better than the free throw scores of the control group, but did not reach a significant difference. This may be because the technical level of the novice group is indeed Very low, and the penalty basket technique is relatively fine and the test is not fully understood by the tester at the time of implementation. Overall, the results of the trial 1 are basically consistent with our expectations, and future research should be improved in the selection of trial tasks.

Conclusions

When the experts in the expert group turned their attention to the specific implementation process during the exercise, they not only did not improve the performance of the exercise, but also affected the exercise execution process; when the participants of the novice group turned their attention to the specific implementation process during the exercise, Can improve the level of athletic performance.

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