Quote:
People perceived as the most likely to succeed might also be the most likely to crumble under pressure.
A new study finds that individuals with high working-memory capacity, which normally allows them to excel, crack under pressure and do worse on simple exams than when allowed to work with no constraints. Those with less capacity score low, too, but they tend not to be affected by pressure.
"The pressure causes verbal worries, like ‘Oh no, I can’t screw up,’" said Sian Beilock, assistant professor of psychology at Miami University of Ohio. "These thoughts reside in the working memory." And that takes up space that would otherwise be pondering the task at hand.
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The rest of the article is
here.
Personally, I'm great at dealing with things I understand when I'm under pressure. I always get praise at work for being able to deal with things like server outages effectively and without freaking out. Recently I was driving my sister's car when the throttle jammed wide-open on a fairly busy road. After a few unsuccessful jabs at the gas pedal I pushed the clutch in, killed the engine, drifted into a parking lot, unstuck the cable, and got on with things. Didn't even raise my pulse.
But when it comes to stuff like multitasking, managing people, working out a complicated schedule (Bubba will be over to paint my house at 2:00, then I have to meet so-and-so at 2:30, OH SHIT there's that conference call at 2 also, better do that while I'm in the car, gotta be back at the office at 3.....you get the idea), trying to get a hold of a business associate who never answers their goddamn phone, etc., I get really pissed off and flip out. I know plenty of people who actually enjoy those kinds of situations. Funny thing is they're generally the ones to get all worked up when a problem comes up that I have no problem at all with.
Anyway, I'd say that how you deal with pressure is more correlated to how well you understand the situation, rather than short term memory like the article says. What are your thoughts?