Sian Beilock

Sian L. Beilock is a Professor at the University of Chicago. She works on research concerning choking under pressure in sports and other fields. She is a member of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, and serves on their Committee on Education.

Beilock attended the University of California, San Diego, where she received a BS in Cognitive Science (with a minor in Psychology). She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Michigan State University in 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Miami University. Since 2005, she has been on the faculty at the University of Chicago.

Early career

During and subsequent to her PhD research, Beilock explored differences between novice and expert athletic performances. Her work demonstrated that because well-learned motor skills are performed largely outside conscious awareness, expert performers have poorer memories for the step-by-step process of their actions than their less experienced counterparts, which she termed "expertise-induced amnesia". This discovery led Beilock to propose the explicit monitoring theory of choking under pressure, whereby stressful situations cause a breakdown in highly learned motor skills because, in an effort to control performance and ensure success, individuals pay attention to details of their actions that would normally run unconsciously, disrupting otherwise fluid performances.

Current

Later in her career, Beilock's research focused on why people perform poorly in stressful academic situations, such as taking a high-stakes mathematics exam. Beilock found that worries during those situations rob individuals of the working memory or cognitive horsepower they would normally have to focus. Working memory is similar to a mental scratchpad, facilitating the manipulation of information held in consciousness. When working memory is compromised, performance can suffer. Counter-intuitively, Beilock demonstrated that those students who have the highest working memory are the ones most likely to perform poorly in stressful exam situations. Because people with more working memory rely on their brainpower more, they can be affected to a greater extent in stressful academic situations. There is debate about how to interpret high-stakes test scores. Beilock's work demonstrated that stressful situations during tests might diminish meaningful differences between students that, under less-stressful situations, might exhibit greater differences in performance. This work raises the possibility that high-stakes standardized tests have been filtering out and excluding persons with the most working memory from acceptance to programs, jobs, and institutions which use such tests as screening mechanisms. Beilock's research on choking was chronicled in PBS’s Nova program "How Smart Can We Get?"

In her work, Beilock has explored how simply being aware of a negative stereotype may affect performance (e.g. a girl aware of negative stereotypes regarding gender and math). Termed stereotype threat, Beilock has argued that this is another form of choking under pressure. Beilock has also looked at math anxiety (i.e. a fear or apprehension of math or math-related tasks). She argued that math anxiety is not simply a proxy for poor math skills, but worries about the situation which may rob anxious individuals of the cognitive resources they would normally have. Moreover, she has shown how math anxiety can be passed from teacher to student. Specifically, when female elementary school teachers are anxious about their own math abilities, their female students may learn less math during the school year, and are more likely to endorse gender stereotypes regarding math. Beilock has also explored the neural basis of math anxiety, showing that the brain areas active when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the same brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm, and in some cases, physical pain.

Finally, her work explores learning in math and science more broadly by elucidating the basic cognitive and neural building blocks of numerical ability. She is also investigating how different types of science laboratory experiences (especially experiences that are highly interactive) help students learn physics concepts such as torque and angular momentum. Her work has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Science Foundation, including a CAREER award.

Cognitive Science and Education

Beilock's research relates to educational practice and policy. Her work demonstrates that students' attitudes and anxieties (as well as those of their teachers) are critical to student success. In her work, she has developed simple psychological interventions to help people perform their best under stress. One intervention, expressive writing, is borrowed from James Pennebaker’s work. Beilock and her former PhD student, Gerardo Ramirez, have found that students – especially those highest in test anxiety – who write about their worries before a high-stakes test are less likely to perform poorly due to stress.

• Beilock, S. L. (2010). Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To. Simon & Schuster: Free Press.
• Beilock, S. L. (2015). How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel. Simon & Schuster: Atria Books.