Smart People Choke Under Pressure

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.

Comments

Re:Thinking Inside The Square

[batemanm]

...that pressure causes smart people to think "Oh no, I can't screw up".

No it talks about high working-memory capacity and says nothing about smart people. The title of the submitted article is a little misleading. This appears to be the original article, while here is some of the other work, includes sports performance as well maths.

Re:Thinking Inside The Square

[gr8_phk]

Most engineers and engineering professors are "left-brained". I listened to a lecture once from a guy who studied this (he was after a position at our school). He said the few right-brainers (creative people) who went into engineering shifted to a more left-brained way of thinking by graduation. I am a right-brainer and was fortunate enough to have taken a test early on and can confirm this - I went back and took it again. He also said the right-brainers have a tendancy to work as an engineer for a few years, and then give it up entirely and do something completely different. I have often been temped to do exactly that. I'm not convinced the education shifts you from right to left, it may just improve your ability to think in a more structured way without reducing creativity. He didn't address that issue, but I don't think college reduced my creativity too much even though my test score shifted closer to center on the test.

Unfortunately engineering school tends to drive away the creative people.