Do Women Choke Under Pressure?

There's nothing that raises my ire more quickly than seeing a headline that appears to put down women. But that's exactly what happened when I read the headline "Women are chokers" on Slate.com. The site looks at recent studies that concluded that women are more likely to choke under pressure than men, and provides several theories why it happens.

One of those studies was conducted at Hebrew University where Professor Daniele Paserman reviewed Grand Slam tennis tournaments in 2005 and 2006 and noted that women committed a higher number of unforced errors when playing for the most important points in the match. His conclusion was that women caved in under pressure.

I question the validity of the study for two reasons. First the research was too narrowly focused on one one small aspect of one particular sport. I would think it is difficult to make any kind of generalization about women's performance in compeititon using such narrowly-defined research or focusing only on tennis. Second, Paserman overlooked the bigger picture of how women overcame those unforced errors. How many of these players went on to win their match? The ability to overcome mistakes and still win says a lot about an athlete's character.

Sports psychologist Mike Stadler provides more reasonable explanations on his site about why women might falter under pressure. He suggests that women "may be more sensitive to the emotional aspects of a high-pressure situation." When they focus too much on themselves, it interferes with the skills they've learned that should be done automatically under those circumstances.

I'm inclined to agree with Stadler, but I'll take it a step further. It all comes down to preparation and mental toughness. How well prepared are you for the competition, both mentally and physically? I don't know that emotion has as much to do with it as Stadler suggests. I just think the desire to compete and win is so strong in athletes that they think too much and consequently, try to do to much to win that they commit errors that hurts their chances to win.

I'm still not convinced that women are more susceptible to "choking" than men. I've seen plenty of evidence in recent weeks of men choking big-time on the national stage -- the Bears during Super Bowl XLI is one example -- and women performing very well when they need to, such as Serena Williams at the Australian Open.

The mindset of an athlete is as individual as their fingerprints. Whether an athlete chokes under pressure has a lot to do with what goes on between the ears. It has nothing to do with gender.