Bochum, 01. Mai 2024. In competitive sport, not all performance can always be called upon to the same extent. A study now shows that gender diversification also plays a significant role.

„Skill suffers under pressure!“ says scientist Prof. Dr. Christoph Bühren from Ruhr University Bochum, who himself played in the national tennis league for many years. The effect is called choking under pressure. The professor and his research team investigated the performance parameters that suffer or are favored by pressure situations.

The gender effect was conspicuous. In general, it turned out that men are less able to retrieve their performance than women. The preconditions also play a significant role here. For example, the effect of the home crowd was investigated in football, as well as the preliminary conditions in slalom skiing.

Men fail more often under the same conditions and are therefore eliminated more often. This effect is not significantly the same, but occurs strikingly frequently. The respective genders react differently depending on the type of sport.

The research team’s conclusion so far: „We think that this is because men put themselves under pressure in competitive situations,“ suspects Christoph Bühren. „They may want to win too much, the level of the stress hormone cortisol rises sharply in competitive situations.“ However, if pressure is then added by the framing conditions, they overshoot the optimum level. „Men in particular don’t need any additional motivation in such situations and, above all, you don’t need to point out too many technical details,“ advises Christoph Bühren. „If they think too much about skill tasks, they may suddenly no longer be able to recall automatisms.“

The causes of the corresponding reactions are therefore significant when it comes to differentiating more precisely between the abilities and characteristics of the respective genders.

This is because the human brain develops according to gender. Genders differentiate from female to male with different characteristics. Accordingly, the abilities and characteristics of a person are also predominantly female or male.

Further results from this research can be found in the Ruhr-Universität’s science magazine Rubin. Stählerne Nerven oder eiserner Arm

https://news.rub.de/wissenschaft/2024-04-30-sportwissenschaft-staehlerne-nerven-oder-eiserner-arm