Background and Objectives: While the potentially negative effects of pressure on skilled performance have been well studied in laboratory-based research, theoretically driven questions based on real-world performance data are lacking. Design: We aimed to test the predictions of the newly developed Attentional Control Theory: Sport (ACTS), using archived play-by-play data from the past seven seasons of the National Football League (American Football). Methods: An additive scoring system was developed to characterize the degree of pressure on 212,356 individual offensive plays and a Bayesian regression model was used to test the relationship between performance, pressure and preceding negative outcomes, as outlined in ACTS. Results: There was found to be a clear increase in the incidence of failures on high pressure plays (odds ratio = 1.20), and on plays immediately following a previous play failure (odds ratio = 1.09). Additionally, a combined interactive effect of previous failure and pressure indicated that the feedback effect of negative outcomes was greater when pressure was already high (odds ratio = 1.10), in line with the predictions of ACTS. Conclusions: These findings reveal the importance of exploring momentary changes in pressure in real-world sport settings, and the role of failure feedback in influencing the pressure-performance relationship.
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