Being slightly afraid of the future is good for performance, researchers say
REMINDERS about inevitable doom, gloom and death immediately before competition can increase an athlete’s desire for success, a study has found.
Uri Lifshin, a researcher in the department of psychology at the University of Arizona, found that basketball players performed better during a game when thoughts of doom were provoked beforehand, a reaction that might be linked to what Lifshin described as the “terror management theory”, an instinctive buffer against anxiety.