Abstract
Video games frequently invoke high-pressure circumstances in which player performance is crucial. These high-pressure circumstances are incubators for 'choking' and 'clutching'-phenomena that broadly address critical failures and successes in performance, respectively. The eruption of esports into the mainstream has vitalized the need to understand performance in video games, and particularly in competitive games spaces. In this work, we explore the potential mechanisms behind choking and clutching and how they are related to player traits and tendencies. We report the results of multiple regression analyses, finding that the propensity to choke is positively correlated with Reinvestment, Obsessive Passion, and Public Self-Consciousness, as well as Approach and Avoidance coping styles. Likewise, we find that the propensity to clutch is negatively correlated with Social Anxiety, and positively with Private Self-Consciousness and player experience with competitive gaming. We propose that these findings can be utilized to scaffold and support performance in high-pressure gaming spaces, such as esports. This work represents an initial step in the empirical exploration of choking and clutching in competitive video game contexts.
- [n.d.]. ESLGaming | The ESL Gaming Network. https://www.eslgaming.com/Google Scholar
- [n.d.]. FACEIT. https://www.faceit.com/enGoogle Scholar
- [n.d.]. Toornament - The esports technology. https://www.toornament.com/en_US/Google Scholar
- Abedalbasit Abedalhafiz, Ziad Altahayneh, and Mahmoud Al-Haliq. 2010. Sources of stress and coping styles among student-athletes in Jordan universities. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 5, December 2010 (2010), 1911--1917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.387Google Scholar
- Joseph Ahn, Willam Collis, and Seth Jenny. 2020. The one billion dollar myth: Methods for sizing the massively undervalued esports revenue landscape. International Journal of Esports 1, 1 (2020).Google Scholar
- M H Anshel and Gangyan Si. 2008. Coping Styles Following Acute Stress in Sport Among Elite Chinese Athletes: A Test of Trait and Transactional Coping Theories. Journal of Sport Behavior 31 (2008), 3--21. http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=30071553&lang=fr&site=ehost-liveGoogle Scholar
- Roy F. Baumeister. 1984. Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46, 3 (1984), 610--620. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022- 3514.46.3.610Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Roy F. Baumeister and Carolin J. Showers. 1986. A review of paradoxical performance effects: Choking under pressure in sports and mental tests. European Journal Of Social Psychology 16 (1986), 361--383.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Maciej Behnke, James J. Gross, and Lukasz D. Kaczmarek. 2020. The role of emotions in esports performance. Emotion (10 2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000903Google Scholar
- Sian L. Beilock and Thomas H. Carr. 2001. On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 130, 4 (2001), 701--725. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096--3445.130.4.701Google Scholar
- Max V Birk, Maximillian A Friehs, and Regan L Mandryk. 2017. Age-Based Preferences and Player Experience: A Crowdsourced Cross-sectional Study. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. ACM, Amsterdam, ND, 157--170. https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116608Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Daniel Bonnar, Benjamin Castine, Naomi Kakoschke, and Gemma Sharp. 2019. Sleep and performance in Eathletes: for the win! Sleep Health 5, 6 (12 2019), 647--650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2019.06.007 Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 5, No. CHI PLAY, Article 239. Publication date: September 2021. 239:20 Nicole A. Beres, Madison Klarkowski, and Regan L. MandrykGoogle Scholar
- Daniel Bonnar, Sangha Lee, Michael Gradisar, and Sooyeon Suh. 2019. Risk factors and sleep intervention considerations in esports: A review and practical guide. Sleep Medicine Research 10, 2 (2019), 59--66. https://doi.org/10.17241/smr. 2019.00479Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Michael Buhrmester, Tracy Kwang, and Samuel D. Gosling. 2011. Amazon's mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, 1 (2011), 3--5. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1745691610393980Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Michael D. Buhrmester, Sanaz Talaifar, and Samuel D. Gosling. 2018. An Evaluation of Amazon's Mechanical Turk, Its Rapid Rise, and Its Effective Use. Perspectives on Psychological Science 13, 2 (2018), 149--154. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1745691617706516Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Charles S. Carver and Michael F. Scheier. 1978. Self-focusing effects of dispositional self-consciousness, mirror presence, and audience presence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, 3 (1978), 324--332. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022- 3514.36.3.324Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Shelley Duval and Robert A Wicklund. 1972. A Theory of Objective Self-Awareness. Academic Press. http://linkinghub. elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S006526010860252X%5Cnpapers3://publication/doi/10.1016/S0065--2601(08)60252-XGoogle Scholar
- Joey R Fanfarelli. 2018. Expertise in professional overwatch play. International Journal of Gaming and Computer- Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS) 10, 1 (2018), 1--22.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Allan Fenigstein, Michael F. Scheier, and Arnold H. Buss. 1975. Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 43, 4 (1975), 522--527. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076760Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- A. Field. 2013. Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. In Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics. 297--321. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012691360--6/50012--4Google Scholar
- Guo Freeman and Donghee Yvette Wohn. 2017. ESports as an emerging research context at CHI: Diverse perspectives on definitions. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings Part F1276 (2017), 1601--1608. https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3053158Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Maximilian A. Friehs, Martin Dechant, Sarah Vedress, Christian Frings, and Regan L. Mandryk. 2021. Shocking advantage! Improving digital game performance using non-invasive brain stimulation. International Journal of Human Computer Studies 148 (4 2021), 102582. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2020.102582Google Scholar
- Samuel García-Lanzo and Andrés Chamarro. 2018. Basic psychological needs, passion and motivations in amateur and semi-professional eSports players. Aloma 36, 2 (2018).Google Scholar
- Andrew Geeves, Doris J.F. McIlwain, John Sutton, and Wayne Christensen. 2014. To Think or Not To Think: The apparent paradox of expert skill in music performance. Educational Philosophy and Theory 46, 6 (2014), 674--691. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2013.779214Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Rob Gray. 2004. Attending to the Execution of a Complex Sensorimotor Skill: Expertise Differences, Choking, and Slumps. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 10, 1 (2004), 42--54. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076--898X.10.1.42Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Denise M. Hill, Sheldon Hanton, Nic Matthews, and Scott Fleming. 2010. A qualitative exploration of choking in elite golf. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology 4, 3 (2010), 221--240. https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.4.3.221Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Denise M. Hill and Brian Hemmings. 2015. A phenomenological exploration of coping responses associated with choking in sport. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 7, 4 (2015), 521--538. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 2159676X.2014.981573Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Denise M. Hill and Gareth Shaw. 2013. A qualitative examination of choking under pressure in team sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 14, 1 (2013), 103--110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.07.008Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Daniel Himmelstein, Yitong Liu, and Jamie L. Shapiro. 2017. An exploration of mental skills among competitive league of legend players. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations 9, 2 (2017), 1--21. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJGCMS.2017040101Google Scholar
Digital Library
- William John Ickes, Robert A. Wicklund, and C. Brian Ferris. 1973. Objective self awareness and self esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 9, 3 (1973), 202--219. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022--1031(73)90010--3Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Franz Christian Irorita. 2020. Retirement in esports: Why do esports players retire so early? https://clutchpoints.com/ retirement-in-esports-why-do-esports-players-retire-so-early/Google Scholar
- Robin C. Jackson, Kelly J. Ashford, and Glen Norsworthy. 2006. Attentional focus, dispositional reinvestment, and skilled motor performance under pressure. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 28, 1 (2006), 49--68. https: //doi.org/10.1123/jsep.28.1.49Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Colby Johanson. 2020. colbyj/bride-of-frankensystem 1.1. n.a. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738761Google Scholar
- Charles E. Kimble and Jeffery S. Rezabek. 1992. Playing Games Before an Audience: Social Facilitation or Choking. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal 20, 2 (1992), 115--120. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1992.20.2.115Google Scholar
- Noel P. Kinrade, Robin C. Jackson, and Kelly J. Ashford. 2010. Dispositional reinvestment and skill failure in cognitive and motor tasks. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 11, 4 (2010), 312--319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.02.005Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Noel P. Kinrade, Robin C. Jackson, and Kelly J. Ashford. 2015. Reinvestment, task complexity and decision making under pressure inbasketball. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 20, March (2015), 11--19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 5, No. CHI PLAY, Article 239. Publication date: September 2021. Under Pressure: Exploring Choke and Clutch in Competitive Video Games 239:21 psychsport.2015.03.007Google Scholar
- Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Emotion Regulation in ESports Gaming: A Qualitative Study of League of Legends. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 4, CSCW2, Article 158 (Oct. 2020), 25 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3415229Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Marc André K. Lafrenière, Robert J. Vallerand, Eric G. Donahue, and Geneviève L. Lavigne. 2009. On the costs and benefits of gaming: the role of passion. Cyberpsychology & behavior : the impact of the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society 12, 3 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2008.0234Google Scholar
- Eric Joseph LeNorgant. 2019. Sport-related Anxiety and Self-talk Between Traditional Sports and ESports. Ph.D. Dissertation. California State University, Fresno.Google Scholar
- Brian P. Lewis and Darwyn E. Linder. 1997. Thinking about Choking? Attentional Processes and Paradoxical Performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, 9 (1997), 937--944. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297239003 arXiv:https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297239003 PMID: 29506446.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Derek Lomas, Kishan Patel, Jodi L. Forlizzi, and Kenneth R. Koedinger. 2013. Optimizing challenge in an educational game using large-scale design experiments. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13). Association for Computing Machinery, 89--98. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2470668Google Scholar
- Regan L. Mandryk, Julian Frommel, Ashley Armstrong, and Daniel Johnson. 2020. How Passion for Playing World of Warcraft Predicts In-Game Social Capital, Loneliness, and Wellbeing. Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020). https: //doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02165Google Scholar
- Herbert W. Marsh, Robert J. Vallerand, Marc André K. Lafreniére, Philip Parker, Alexandre J.S. Morin, Noémie Carbonneau, Sophia Jowett, Julien S. Bureau, Claude Fernet, Frédéric Guay, Adel Salah Abduljabbar, and Yvan Paquet. 2013. Passion: Does one scale fit all? Construct validity of two-factor passion scale and psychometric invariance over different activities and languages. Psychological Assessment 25, 3 (2013), 796--809. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032573Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Winter Mason and Siddharth Suri. 2012. Conducting behavioral research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods 44, 1 (2012), 1--23. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0124--6Google Scholar
- R. S.W. Masters, R. C.J. Polman, and N. V. Hammond. 1993. 'Reinvestment': A dimension of personality implicated in skill breakdown under pressure. Personality and Individual Differences 14, 5 (1993), 655--666. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191- 8869(93)90113-HGoogle Scholar
Cross Ref
- Akira Matsui, Anna Sapienza, and Emilio Ferrara. 2020. Does Streaming Esports Affect Players' Behavior and Performance? Games and Culture 15, 1 (1 2020), 9--31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019838095Google Scholar
- J. P. Maxwell, R. S.W. Masters, and J. M. Poolton. 2006. Performance breakdown in sport: The roles of reinvestment and verbal knowledge. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 77, 2 (2006), 271--276. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367. 2006.10599360Google Scholar
- Christopher Mesagno and Daryl Marchant. 2013. Characteristics of Polar Opposites: An Exploratory Investigation of Choking-Resistant and Choking-Susceptible Athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 25, 1 (2013), 72--91. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2012.664605Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- MatthewK Miller, Regan L Mandryk, Max V Birk, Ansgar E Depping, and Tushita Patel. 2017. Through the Looking Glass: Effects of Feedback on Self-Awareness and Conversation during Video Chat. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Denver, CO, USA, 5271--5283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025548Google Scholar
Digital Library
- NACE. 2021. Home - Varsity Collegiate Esports - NACE. https://nacesports.org/Google Scholar
- Newzoo. 2020. Newzoo Global Esports Market Report 2020 | Light Version | Newzoo. https://newzoo.com/insights/trendreports/ newzoo-global-esports-market-report-2020-light-version/Google Scholar
- Olympic Council of Asia. 2020. Esports 'thrilled' with Asian Games inclusion. https://ocasia.org/news/1433-esportsthrilled- with-asian-games-inclusion.html.Google Scholar
- A. N. (Abraham Naftali) Oppenheim and A. N. (Abraham Naftali) Oppenheim. [n.d.]. Questionnaire design, interviewing, and attitude measurement. 303 pages.Google Scholar
- Mark Otten. 2009. Choking vs. Clutch performance: A study of sport performance under pressure. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 31, 5 (2009), 583--601. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.31.5.583Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Dylan Poulus, Tristan J. Coulter, Michael G. Trotter, and Remco Polman. 2020. Stress and Coping in Esports and the Influence of Mental Toughness. Frontiers in Psychology 11 (4 2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00628Google Scholar
- Andrew K. Przybylski, Netta Weinstein, Richard M. Ryan, and C. Scott Rigby. 2009. Having to versus wanting to play: Background and consequences of harmonious versus obsessive engagement in video games. Cyberpsychology and Behavior 12, 5 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2009.0083Google Scholar
- Daniel Railsback and Nicholas Caporusso. 2018. Investigating the Human Factors in eSports Performance. In Advances in Human Factors inWearable Technologies and Game Design (AHFE '18). Springer, 325--334. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 3--319--94619--1_32Google Scholar
- Mariel Soto Reyes. 2021. Esports Ecosystem Report 2021: The key industry companies and trends growing the esports market which is on track to surpass $1.5B by 2023.Google Scholar
- RIOT. 2021. Collegiate LoL Taiwan. https://schoolrank.lol.garena.tw/ Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 5, No. CHI PLAY, Article 239. Publication date: September 2021. 239:22 Nicole A. Beres, Madison Klarkowski, and Regan L. MandrykGoogle Scholar
- Susan Roth and Lawrence J. Cohen. 1986. Approach, Avoidance, and Coping With Stress. American Psychologist 41, 7 (1986), 813--819. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.7.813Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Steve Rousseau. 2019. Can You Get Too Old to Be Good at Video Games? https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa7w9z/canyou- get-too-old-to-be-good-at-video-gamesGoogle Scholar
- Paul Rozin and Edward B. Royzman. 2001. Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review 5, 4 (2001), 296--320.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Michael F. Scheier and Charles S. Carver. 1985. The Self-Consciousness Scale: A Revised Version for Use with General Populations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 15, 8 (1985), 687--699. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559- 1816.1985.tb02268.xGoogle Scholar
Cross Ref
- Matthias Schubert, Anders Drachen, and Tobias Mahlmann. 2016. Esports Analytics Through Encounter Detection. In Proceedings of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 2016. MIT Sloan, 1--18.Google Scholar
- Christian Swann, Lee Crust, Patricia Jackman, Stewart A. Vella, Mark S. Allen, and Richard Keegan. 2017. Performing under pressure: Exploring the psychological state underlying clutch performance in sport. Journal of Sports Sciences 35, 23 (2017), 2272--2280. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2016.1265661Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Joseph J. Thompson, Mark R. Blair, and Andrew J. Henrey. 2014. Over the Hill at 24: Persistent Age-Related Cognitive- Motor Decline in Reaction Times in an Ecologically Valid Video Game Task Begins in Early Adulthood. PLoS ONE 9, 4 (4 2014), e94215. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094215Google Scholar
- John Toner and Aidan Moran. 2014. In praise of conscious awareness: A new framework for the investigation of "continuous improvement" in expert athletes. Frontiers in Psychology 5, JUL (2014). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014. 00769Google Scholar
- Mario (Moonprayer) Trappein. 2016. Ladder anxiety, and how to overcome the fear of ranked play - Articles - Tempo Storm. https://tempostorm.com/articles/ladder-anxiety-and-how-to-overcome-the-fear-of-ranked-playGoogle Scholar
- UEM. 2021. University European Masters. https://uemasters.com/Google Scholar
- Robert J. Vallerand. 2010. On passion for life activities: The dualistic model of passion (1 ed.). Vol. 42. Elsevier Inc. 2010. 97--193 pages. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065--2601(10)42003--1Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Robert J. Vallerand, Geneviève A. Mageau, Andrew J. Elliot, Alexandre Dumais, Marc André Demers, and François Rousseau. 2008. Passion and performance attainment in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 9, 3 (2008), 373--392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2007.05.003Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Robert J. Vallerand, Geneviève A. Mageau, Catherine Ratelle, Maude Léonard, Céline Blanchard, Richard Koestner, Marylène Gagné, and Josée Marsolais. 2003. Les passions de Íame. On obsessive and harmonious passion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, 4 (2003), 756--767. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022--3514.85.4.756Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Penny S Visser, Jon A Krosnick, and Paul J Lavrakas. 2000. Survey research. In Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, US, 223--252.Google Scholar
- Michelle W. Voss, Arthur F. Kramer, Chandramallika Basak, Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, and Brent Roberts. 2010. Are expert athletes 'expert' in the cognitive laboratory? A meta-analytic review of cognition and sport expertise. Applied Cognitive Psychology 24, 6 (9 2010), 812--826. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1588Google Scholar
- JinWang, Daryl Marchant, and Tony Morris. 2004. Coping style and susceptibility to choking. Journal of Sport Behavior 27, 1 (2004), 75--92.Google Scholar
- Alfonso White and Daniela M Romano. 2020. Scalable Psychological Momentum Forecasting in Esports. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.11274 (2020).Google Scholar
- A. Mark Williams, Keith Davids, and John Garrett Pascoe Williams. 2005. Visual Perception and Action in Sport. Routledge, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203979952Google Scholar
- Minerva Wu, Je Seok Lee, and Constance Steinkuehler. 2021. Understanding Tilt in Esports: A Study on Young League of Legends Players. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 321, 9 pages. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445143Google Scholar
Digital Library
Index Terms
Under Pressure: Exploring Choke and Clutch in Competitive Video Games
Recommendations
Emotion Regulation in eSports Gaming: A Qualitative Study of League of Legends
CSCWToday eSports gaming is enjoying growing popularity in the world and much attention from various research areas, including CSCW. eSports gaming is a highly competitive environment commonly associated with negative emotions such as anxiety and stress. ...
Expertise in Professional Overwatch Play
eSports is a rapidly growing phenomenon in competitive gaming. Expertise is an interesting topic to study in relation to eSports, as eSports athletes are considered among the most highly-skilled players of their particular games. Examining expertise ...
The gamer identity scale: A measure of self concept as a video gamer
AbstractResearch examining video game players from a psychological and behavioral perspective is prominent however there is still a need to better distinguish casual from serious video game players (i.e., gamers). The present research ...
Highlights- A scale for assessing the extent to which an individual self-identifies as a gamer is presented.






Comments