When pressure sinks performance: evidence from diving competitions

Garbi, Elni; Genakos, Christos; and Pagliero, Mario (2015) When pressure sinks performance: evidence from diving competitions [Working paper]

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Tournaments are designed to enhance participants’ effort and productivity. However, ranking near the top may increase psychological pressure and reduce performance. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on performance using data from international diving tournaments. We find that competitors systematically underperform when ranked closer to the top, despite higher incentives to perform well.

Item Type	Working paper
Copyright holders	© 2015 The Authors
Keywords	Tournaments, incentives, choking under pressure
Departments	Centre for Economic Performance
Date Deposited	23 Apr 2015 15:12
URI	https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/61700