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Peyton Strunk

Professor Orozco

ENC 1102

11 February, 2024

Research Question: I will use scholarly and popular sources related to Recep Gorgulu’s

article “Counter-Intentional Errors of Basketball Free Throw Shooting Under Elevated

Pressure: An Educational Approach of Task Instruction” to analyze how different authors

discuss anxiety and their effect on athletes in sports.

Annotated Bibliography

Bakker, F. C., Oudejans, R. R. D., Binsch, O., & Van der Kamp, J. (2006). Penalty

shooting and gaze behavior: Unwanted effects of the wish not to miss.

International Journal of Sports Psychology, 37, 265–280.

The author writes about how in soccer when completing a penalty kick, the place

that they are gazing at typically indicates where they aim. When provided with a

"negatively formulated instruction" to shoot outside of the reach of the

goalkeeper, it caused the striker to be more inaccurate. In the primary source,

Gorgulu talks about how anxiety is formed from the presence of a threat. Bakker

furthers this discussion by confirming the relationship after testing how the

negatively created instructions resulted in a greater amount of unsuccessful shots.

He continues by saying that this anxiety stems from the player’s visual attention

being drawn to the “to-be-avoided” area, which inhibits their ability to direct their
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attention at the point of interest, thus affecting performance. Tying into Bakker’s

testing, Gorgulu found that when a professional basketball player gave themselves

the task to shoot a free throw while attempting to avoid the rim, this created

additional errors explained by Wegners theory of ironic processes of mental

control. This leads us to conclude that Bakker’s research supplements Gorgulu’s

claim that a player's performance will break down when given additional

conditions that would increase anxiety.

Baumeister, R. F. (1984). Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and the

paradoxical effects of incentives on skilled performance. Journal of Personality &

Social Psychology, 46(3), 610–620. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.610

The author discusses the claim that when putting lots of pressure on yourself to

complete a task, you may become overwhelmed and your attention will shift from

completing the task at hand to the stress you've built up. This would negatively

impact the player’s performance by interrupting their muscle memory for the task

at hand. The author continues the discussion by documenting experiments done

evaluating how one's increased attention to their performance resulted in

performance decay. He found that individuals who heavily focused on their

self-consciousness and were often overthinking tended to perform worse

compared to individuals who claimed to not pay much regard to their

self-consciousness. Connecting back to Gorgulu’s writing, he claims that anxiety

is heavily related with the player’s regards to self-esteem. Gorgulu’s support in

the conscious processing hypothesis is also in agreement with Baumeister’s

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results, thus supplementing Gorgulu’s claim that a player who focuses too heavily

on successfully completing a task will experience sports anxiety.

“Eliminate Fear at the Free-Throw Line.” NBC Camps,

www.nbccamps.com/blog/basketball/eliminate-fear-free-throw-line. Accessed 2

Feb. 2024.

The author writes that getting rid of the fear of missing a free throw is important

to ensure that you perform well. The author also says that elevated fear levels will

reduce your sensitivity and restrict your muscles which can inhibit performance.

The author continues the discussion by listing seven ways that a player can

combat fear at the free throw line to avoid sports anxiety. One of the tips that the

author provides is to increase the pressure by giving yourself a consequence if

you miss. This contrasts the primary source since Gorgulu drives the point that

increasing pressure will actually result in frequent failures. However, the author is

in agreement with Gorgulu when suggesting to work on disciplining your

thoughts prior to executing the free throw to avoid negative thoughts and

overthinking.

Jenkins, Rhiannon. “How Anxiety Affects Sports Performance.” Jenkins Soft Tissue

Therapy, 28 June 2021,

jenkinstherapy.com/blog/how-anxiety-affects-sports-performance/#:~:text=%F0%

9F%94%BA%20it%20can%20be%20extremely,when%20in%20a%20sporting%

20environment.

The author discusses how an individual suffering from anxiety may find

themselves only focusing on the negative aspects of things and disregarding the
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positives. The author also points out that it can take months or even years of

training to be fully emotionally present during high stake games. It is also

documented that 30-60% of athletes are affected by sports anxiety. The author

then continues the discussion by mentioning popular theories regarding anxiety’s

impact on sports performance. The “Inverted U Theory'' says that there is an

optimal level of anxiety and that performance will decline if anxiety levels fall too

high or low. This viewpoint isn’t shared by Gorgulu, as the primary source

focuses on how performance decreases as anxiety increases, and does not include

performance changes from major anxiety decreases.

Swaim, Emily. “Why Sports Anxiety Happens and How to Cope.” Healthline, Healthline

Media, 9 Mar. 2022, www.healthline.com/health/sports-performance-anxiety.

The author discusses sports anxiety and lists mental and physical signs of it. The

author then goes on to mention that sports anxiety can lead to some negative

outcomes such as poor sports performance, lashing out, and self-sabotage. Swaim

adds to the discussion by backing up Jenkins’ point that 30-60% of athletes are

affected by sports anxiety. Swaim also mentions the Yerkes-Dodson law, which

indicates that if the task you are attempting feels too stressful, you may panic and

freeze up, causing you to fail more often. This aligns with Gorgulu’s views that

adding stressors to the game will result in more frequent ironic errors.

Woodman, T., Barlow, M., & Gorgulu, R. (2015). Don’t miss, don’t miss, d’oh!

Performance when anxious suffers specifically where least desired. The Sport

Psychologist, 29(3), 213–223. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2014-0114

The author discusses the experiments conducted to test Wegner's theory of ironic
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processes by having players perform hockey penalty shots. They were instructed

to not miss in a specific direction, and testing proved that the amount of ironic

errors increased when given the instructions, however, non ironic errors had no

change. These tests are a useful addition to the discussion because it proves

Wegner's theory to be correct when viewed in a sports setting, thus providing

support to Gorgulu's testing and theories written in the primary source.