Attentional distraction by negative sports words in athletes under low- and high-pressure conditions: Evidence from the sport emotional stroop task

© American Psychological Association.To compete successfully, athletes should often focus attention on task-relevant information, thereby inhibiting task-irrelevant distracting information, which can be emotionally laden (e.g., worries about performance). To date, there has been a lack of research assessing athletes' processing of emotional stimuli. Further, objective measurements assessing general inhibition performance have been performed under low-pressure conditions. We investigated for the first time athletes' processing of emotional task-irrelevant information in low- and high-pressure conditions. Forty athletes performed a modified emotional Stroop task (i.e., sport emotional Stroop task [SEST]) measuring attentional processing of emotional task-irrelevant stimuli. Results show an interference effect under low (p = .011) and high (p = .021) pressure for negative sports words. No effect was found for positive sports words in the low-pressure (p = .271) or high-pressure (p = .393) condition. No effect of pressure on interference was observed. Results are discussed as they relate to the threat-relatedness hypothesis and the arousal hypothesis as well as attentional control theory. Possible fields of application for the SEST are reviewed. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.