A culture of striving augments use of working memory? Implications for attention control

A culture of striving was notable in the developmental background of many of the elite and super elite athletes in the Hardy et al.

Critically, a culture of striving was credited with a positive influence on a range of issues relevant to elite sports performance, including performance under pressure. Of the six athletes who did not reveal a culture of striving, five reported the greatest difficulty performing in high-pressure situations. We suspect that a culture of striving facilitates the development of attention control ability, which subsequently assists performance under pressure. We discuss attention control from the perspective of working memory and hypothesize that a culture of striving trains individuals to maximize their working memory capacity.