Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Sports Sci. 2011 Oct;29(13):1463-70. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2011.604679. Epub 2011 Aug 11.
In tournaments in various sports that feature one-on-one competition, the trophy is sometimes prominently displayed near the athletes during the final. Based on recent research on subtle reward cues, we propose that such trophies have the potential to induce choking under pressure in the match favourites, who are known to be most at risk. To test this idea, we analysed real-life tennis performance data (service performance and rally performance) from professional tournaments. While favourites generally outperformed underdogs during rallies, they did not do so in finals in which (a) large amounts of money were at stake and (b) a trophy was on display near the court. These findings support the idea that tournament trophies may distract favourites by continuously reminding them of what is at stake, and via that route may severely thwart their performance.
在各种单人对抗项目的比赛中，奖杯通常会在决赛中摆在运动员附近的显眼位置。基于最近关于微妙奖励线索的研究，我们提出这样的奖杯有可能导致比赛中优势选手在压力下出现失误，这些选手是最容易受到影响的。为了验证这个想法，我们分析了职业比赛中的真实网球比赛数据（发球表现和对打表现）。虽然优势选手在对打中通常表现优于劣势选手，但在奖金数额巨大和（或）奖杯摆在球场边的决赛中并非如此。这些发现支持了这样一种观点，即比赛奖杯可能会通过不断提醒优势选手注意比赛的重要性，分散他们的注意力，从而严重影响他们的表现。
