Self-Focused Attention and Motor Skill Failure: The Moderating Role of Action Orientation

It was expected that state-oriented individuals are more likely than action-oriented individuals to worsen skilled motor performance after the induction of self-focused attention. Experienced basketball players (N = 62) performed 10 basketball free throws under normal conditions (i.e., baseline), followed by another 10 free throws under self-focus conditions. As expected, action orientation systematically predicted performance under the self-focus condition, but not the baseline score. State-oriented participants decreased the accuracy of their free throws from before to after the induction of self-focused attention, whereas action-oriented participants showed stable performance. These differences could not be attributed to increases in arousal or performance worries. The results extend prior research on motor skill failure by showing that personality moderates the performance-harming effect of self-focused attention.