The Psychological Factors Contributing to the Yips in Sports Performance

Volume 1, No. 1
Online ISSN: 3071-0898

© The authors. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons 4.0 License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Psychological Factors Contributing to the Yips in Sports Performance

CONFERENCE ABSTRACT

Morgan Harold* and Tamara Avant⁺

School of Health Sciences, Barton College, Wilson, NC, USA
*Student author, ⁺Faculty mentor

CITATION

Harold, Morgan; & Avant, Tamara. (2026). The psychological factors contributing to the yips in sports performance [Conference abstract]. Barton Journal, 1(1). 203–204. https://bartonjournal.org/vol-1-no-1/2026-cat4-article-no-042

Abstract

The present study examined how psychological pressure contributes to the yips, a performance breakdown characterized by involuntary disruptions in fine motor control during athletic tasks (e.g., McDaniel et al., 1989; Saleh, 2023). It was hypothesized that athletes experiencing greater psychological pressure and anxiety would report yips. These yips include disruptions and poorer performance under high-pressure conditions. Participating student-athletes (N = 43) averaged 8-10 years of sport experience, with nearly half reporting experiencing yips. Participants completed a survey measuring competition anxiety, overthinking, and fear of mistakes, followed by a sport-specific skill task performed under low- and high-pressure conditions. They reported moderate competition anxiety (M = 5.86, SD = 2.04), higher anxiety during high-pressure moments (M = 6.83, SD = 2.32), as well as moderate levels of overthinking (M = 3.02, SD = 1.20) and fears of mistakes (M = 3.50, SD = 1.21). Contrary to hypotheses, there was no effect of experience on factors contributing to poorer performance; however, participants with a history of choking under pressure were significantly more concerned about impact of pressure (M = 6.23, SD = 1.59) than those without this experience (M = 4.56, SD = 2.24), F(2, 38) = 4.99, p < .05, R2 = 0.21. A subset of participants completed a sport-specific skill task and performed marginally better in the low-pressure condition (M = 83.5%, SD = 19.6), t(3) = 2.45, p = 0.09. These findings contribute to understanding psychological mechanisms underlying the yips and may inform targeted interventions to reduce anxiety and improve performance.

Keywords: yips, disruptions, anxiety, pressure

References

McDaniel, K. D.; Cummings, J. L.; Shain, S. (1989). The “yips”: A focal dystonia of golfers. Neurology, 39(2 Pt 1), 192–195. doi:10.1212/wnl.39.2.192.

Saleh, Naveed. (2023, July). When athletes get “the yips.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-red-light-district/202307/when-athletes-get-the-yips

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