Choke and Clutch (Publication)
“Under Pressure: Exploring Choke and Clutch in Competitive Video Games”
Won best psychology Honours thesis at the UofS in 2021, awarded by Canadian Psychological Association
Project Summary
Purpose: To investigate the mechanisms and traits that contribute to choke and clutch under pressure within competitive multiplayer video games, as well as how players cope in these scenarios.
Methodology: We use a quantitative approach to explore how traits (self-consciousness, reinvestment, and passion orientation) and coping styles (approach and avoidance) are associated with choking or clutching.
Definitions: * ‘Choking’ (a scenario in which a player fails to maintain their performance in a high-pressure situation where it is expected or highly important), * Clutching’ (a scenario wherein a player performs well under pressure in an unfavorable situation, leading to a desirable outcome), * ‘Reinvestment’ (a tendency to consciously control the step-by-step components of executing a skill through use of explicit rules), * ‘Harmonious Passion’ (a balanced and authentic passion for a beloved activity), * ‘Obsessive Passion’ (a preoccupation and inflexible persistence toward a loved activity), * ‘Public Self-Consciousness’ (awareness of the self as an object in social contexts), * ‘Private Self-Consciousness’ (attention directed inwards to one’s thought processes), * ‘Approach Coping’ (strategies that actively address the stressor) and * ‘Avoidance Coping’ (strategies that avoid the stressor).
My Contribution
Led my research team in developing the research questions and the study design.
Conducted a comprehensive literature review to provide the theoretical background for our study, and found appropriate validated scales to measure our constructs.
Developed and deployed the survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk survey platform.
Cleaned the data using a variety of filters to exclude respondents who completed the study too quickly, had no variation in responses, or provided nonsensical responses.
Analyzed the data in SPSS using hierarchical multiple regressions (controlled for age and experience).
Composed the write-up of the results and discussion sections.
Presented the work as the lead speaker at CHI PLAY 2021 (a flagship venue for games researchers with a 25% acceptance rate).
Process
Step 1: Deployed an online survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to participants (N=210) that met our recruitment criteria.
Step 2: Participants answered questionnaires about their demographics, gaming preferences and history, experience with esports or competitive gaming, as well as trait inventories regarding reinvestment, self-consciousness, and passion types.
Step 3: Participants were asked to provide their own definitions of ‘choking’ and ‘clutching’ and indicate whether they had choked or clutched in a competitive multiplayer video game, as well as how often these episodes occurred.
Step 4: Participants were prompted to recall a scenario in which they choked or clutched (using the definitions we provided), then completed an inventory concerning the coping styles that were used in each scenario.
Step 5: Hierarchical multiple regression (controlled for age and experience) were conducted to analyze the relationships between player traits and propensity to choke or clutch.
Results
There’s so much more to see in the paper, but our takeaways are that:
Across all models, experience with a game was associated with a reduction in propensity to choke and an increase in propensity to clutch.
Across all models, age was not associated with either propensity to choke or clutch.
Choking was associated with increased reinvestment, public self-consciousness, obsessive passion, and both approach and avoidance styles of coping with choking.
Clutching was associated with higher private self-consciousness and lower social anxiety.