Negative instructions and choking under pressure in aiming at a far target

Providing instructions to avoid an action may ironically increase the tendency to engage in that action, especially when attentional resources are taxed. In the perceptual-motor domain the role of anxiety in inducing such ironic effects has rarely been investigated even though anxiety both affects attention and plays a crucial role in performance decrements in sports (i.e., choking under pressure). Therefore, we investigated the combined effects of anxiety and negative instructions on perceptual-motor performance. Participants threw darts under one neutral instruction to hit bulls-eye and one negatively worded instruction while positioned either high or low on a climbing wall (i.e., with and without anxiety). Only the combination of high anxiety and the negative instruction led to a significant drop in performance. In line with theories on ironic processes and choking, the results indicate that when negative instructions and anxiety are combined, the likelihood of ironic effects and, thus, choking, is increased