How Does Rational Self Talk Affect Performance?

Half of the golfers received envelopes with only extreme or irrational statements that, in theory, would increase the pressure they felt. The other half received envelopes containing more bal or rational statements intended to relieve some pressure. After reading these statements and stewing on them for a little while, they took their 15 puts while using these statements - just as they practised. They performed better when using ther pressure relieving rational self talk than when they use the pressure increasing irrational statements. So even though the wording of the two types of statement may at first seem quite similar, it appears that so called rational self talk is more ducive to performing optimaly than irrational self talk.