Elite female tennis players less prone to choking under pressure than elite male players

By Christian Jarrett While biological differences between the sexes might give men a physical advantage in many sports, it’s possible that they come at a mental cost. Men typically show a greater spike in the stress hormone cortisol when under pressure than women, and, given that high cortisol levels can interfere with mental processing, it’s feasible this could mean men’s performance is more adversely affected in high-stakes contexts than women’s. A new analysis of elite tennis performance in the Journal of Economic Psychology is consistent with this account. Based on the outcome of thousands of games played across the four tennis Grand Slams in 2010, the researchers led by Danny Cohen-Zada at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, found that men were adversely affected by high pressure by about twice as much as women. Extrapolating to the world of work, Cohen-Zada and his colleagues said this casts doubt on the argument that the gender pay gap is due to women’s inability to compete under pressure, though they acknowledged there are caveats to this conclusion. The researchers accessed data on scores and players for over 1000 men’s and women’s matches played at Wimbledon, The French Open, The Australian Open and the US Open in 2010. They focused on Grand Slams because they offer the same prize money to men and women competitors, which rules out differences in stakes as an explanation for any observed sex differences in performance ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Gender Occupational Sport Source Type: blogs