Why athletes choke and other reasons the NY Jets break my heart…

Does the postseason really exist? As a Mets, Jets and Islanders fan, it doesn’t seem likely, but rumor has it baseball is still being played, Peyton Manning has one more Super Bowl in him, and the Boston Bruins will NOT win the Atlantic Division. As I sit, simultaneously heartened by headlines like “Islanders improve to 2-0 for first time in 7 years” (NY Post) and haunted by replays of Butt Fumbles past, I’m forced to question why athletes fail to perform to their full potential.

For the sake of argument, let’s chalk Jets’ losses up to choking and not a lack of talent, coaching or general management (indulge me). The concept of choking has been around since at least the 1980s when Roy Baumeister proposed a model for decreased performance under pressure. Since then, psychologists, neurologists and the like have asked why competent people falter in clutch moments, giving rise to two general mechanisms that create “the choke”:

1.   High stress situations that require planning for optimal outcomes decrease the capacity of our long-term (working) memory, lessening our ability to process situations (Otto 2013).

2.   Under pressure, neurons on the left side of the brain involved in analytical thinking fire more frequently than those on the right that control motor skill. As a result, we “overthink” and try to assert conscious control over automatic actions. In these moments, muscle control is lost—a phenomena called focal dystonia or more commonly “the yips” (Linder et al. 2007).

Despite these studies, there is still no clear explanation for why some athletes perform in the clutch, while others flail.

One justification may be that stress has an upside. Stress releases dopamine, a chemical signal, into the prefrontal cortex (front of the brain). Dopamine helps control pleasure and reward centers, and a boost is a good thing; but stress can cause dopamine to flood the prefrontal cortex and disrupt proper function. Some people have enzymes that remove dopamine from the area faster than others. In high stress, high dopamine volume situations, this proves an advantage; on average, however, those with slow-acting enzymes are shown to have higher I.Q.’s (Bronson and Merryman 2013).

Perhaps the NFL will add enzyme analysis to their Wonderlic Test assessment? Or maybe we’re in for a whole new realm of doping? Either way, It’s Tough Bein’ a New York Jets Fan.