Choking under pressure and gender: Evidence from professional tennis

Danny Cohen-Zada, Alex Krumer, Mosi Rosenboim and Offer Moshe Shapir

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2017, vol. 61, issue C, 176-190

Abstract: We exploit a unique setting in which two professionals compete in a real-life tennis contest with high monetary rewards in order to assess how men and women respond to competitive pressure. Comparing their performance in low-stakes versus high-stakes situations, we find that men consistently choke under competitive pressure, but with regard to women the results are mixed. Furthermore, even if women show a drop in performance in the more crucial stages of the match, it is in any event about 50% smaller than that of men. These findings are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies.

Keywords: Gender; Performance; Competitive pressure; Tennis; Choking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (58)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:176-190

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2017.04.005

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