The usefulness of the useless: How ritualized behavior improves self-control under competition pressure

Figures & data

Table 1. Means (SDs) by different types of behavior under low-high pressure.

	Types of behavior	n	Low-pressure	High-pressure	Overall
The average number of loops (/loop)	Ritualized behavior	51	5.66 ± 1.58	5.86 ± 1.35	5.77 ± 1.45
	Random behavior	48	4.74 ± 1.95	4.73 ± 1.52	4.74 ± 1.73
	Control group	47	4.82 ± 2.02	4.85 ± 2.02	4.84 ± 2.00
Error rate (/%)	Ritualized behavior	51	4.64 ± 3.51	2.35 ± 1.70	3.43 ± 2.92
	Random behavior	48	11.38 ± 10.25	6.34 ± 1.30	8.86 ± 8.61
	Control group	47	8.28 ± 5.69	10.14 ± 9.61	9.19 ± 7.82

Figure 1. The left picture is the VR shooting task in the low-pressure scene (the left green area in the scene is the scoreboard), the right picture is the VR shooting task in the high-pressure scene (the left green area in the scene is the scoreboard, and the right green area is the bonus).

Figure 2. Low-pressure and high-pressure Mean error rates for different behavior type.

Note: Each group shows the computed 95% confidence region (colored area) and the observed data (colored circles and squares). This data visualization can display the dispersion of participants at each test time point (Mccabe et al., 2018).

Mccabe, C. J., Kim, D. S., & King, K. M. (2018). Improving present practices in the visual display of interactions. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(2), 147–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245917746792

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