Bottle it up: how venting emotion can harm performance in elite sport | Sean Ingle

Studies have shown that failing to control feelings has a negative effect on outcomes – but there are exceptionsTwo scenes from an extraordinary week. The first: Justin Rose, a gentleman in a bearpit as Augusta hollered loud and long for Rory McIlroy. The second: the British tennis player Harriet Dart, causing a stink by asking for her French opponent to apply deodorant as “she’s smelling really bad” before succumbing to a 6-0, 6-3 thrashing.Pressure does strange things, of course. But the wildly different reactions of Rose, Dart and indeed McIlroy, whose final round became part white-knuckle ride, part pass‐the‐parcel, raises an intriguing question: when the heat is on, should sport stars let their emotions out or bottle them up to improve their performance? Continue reading...