In high-stakes moments, pro female basketball players tend to choke, while the men actually don't.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CHOKING UNDER COMPETITIVE PRESSURE:EVIDENCE FROM PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL
SSRN · 6468393
The Takeaway
Using NBA and WNBA free-throw data, researchers found that women's performance drops as the win-probability impact of a shot increases, a trend that persists across all skill levels. For men, the performance decline is negligible, suggesting that high-pressure evaluation systems may systematically disadvantage women even when their underlying ability is equal.
From the abstract
This paper uses detailed NBA and WNBA free-throw data to examine gender differences in response to competitive pressure in a real-world setting with high monetary rewards, where success depends solely on individual performance. We construct a continuous pressure index that captures the estimated change in win probability from making each free throw, varying systematically with the score gap and time remaining in the game, which we partition into discrete time intervals. We then identify the caus