History Main / ParalysisByAnalysis

* Ken Jennings, the winningest guy ever to win at Jeopardy once told an interviewer that the question he was most embarrassed about getting wrong was because he knew the answer. And he knew that he knew the answer. He just couldn't remember the answer, because he'd never sat down and studied the poem like he did with ''everything'' else. Because it was his father's favorite poem: "Literature/{{Jabberwocky}}".

** Chuck Knoblauch was an All-Star second baseman with the Twins and the dynastic Yankees of the late 90's. However, in 2000, he was unable to make routine throws from the relatively short distance of his position to first, even once airmailing a ball into the stands and clocking the mother of Keith Olbermann in the face. Despite several methods on trying to correct it, eventually he forced out from his position into a full-time designated hitter, staying off the field.

** This actually was done and worked. The conclusion was basically: do a full-court press all game every game.

** In another Kevin Costner film, ''Film/TinCup'', Costner's titular character gets the yips when he's simultaneously worried about his love interest and the upcoming U.S. Open.

* In ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', this seems to be at least one of Chidi's problems with making decisions. As an ethicist, he tries to do all he can to live his life ethically, but there are many ways to see any dilemma. Should he use utilitarianism, or maybe virtue ethics? In which situation? Can he be sure another piece of information wouldn't change things? How can he ''ever'' be sure he's doing the most ethical thing? This means he has a hard time making decisions about even the smallest things.

* In ''Series/{{TheGoodPlace}}'', this seems to be at least one of Chidi's problems with making decisions. As an ethicist, he tries to do all he can to live his life ethically, but there are many ways to see any dilemma. Should he use utilitarianism, or maybe virtue ethics? In which situation? Can he be sure another piece of information wouldn't change things? How can he ''ever'' be sure he's doing the most ethical thing? This means he has a hard time making decisions about even the smallest things.

* The ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'' webseries and novel imply that Sparadrap is compeltely immunne to it (mentioning that "pressure has no effect on him"), which helps his real-life profession as [[spoiler:a tennis player]] a lot.

* ''WebVideo/Doormonster'''s [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly titled]] "[[https://youtu.be/SW2cCKLNUf4 Analysis Paralysis]]" shows that Ricky suffers from this trope - [[spoiler: even in a game as simple as ''TabletopGames/{{Candyland}}'']]

* This trope is the basis [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis Somatic marker hypothesis]]: why emotions were evolved in humans and other animals as a means of avoiding them. Too much time spent trying to analyze one's situation could mean the difference between escaping a dangerous situation or not, if the situation you're in is so inconsiderate as to not remain static while the brain tries to work out the best solution. There is a story of a man whose brain had been damaged so that his emotional response was heavily muted but was otherwise fine -- he found that he would spend upwards of two hours driving around a parking lot at his local grocery store because he, relying only on his brain's reasoning ability, couldn't decide on which spot to take.

* This trope is one suggested reason why emotions were evolved in humans and other animals as a means of avoiding them. Too much time spent trying to analyze one's situation could mean the difference between escaping a dangerous situation or not, if the situation you're in is so inconsiderate as to not remain static while the brain tries to work out the best solution. There is a story of a man whose brain had been damaged so that his emotional response was heavily muted but was otherwise fine -- he found that he would spend upwards of two hours driving around a parking lot at his local grocery store because he, relying only on his brain's reasoning ability, couldn't decide on which spot to take.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Peak Performance", Picard and Riker fight each other as part of a military exercise, and Data (who is acting as Picard's first officer) gets hit by this twice. First, he loses a strategy game to the Starfleet observer, and spends almost half the episode agonizing about his loss and analyzing his systems for what went wrong. Then, when Picard orders him to get his act together and come up with a strategy to defeat Riker, Data nearly does this to himself again by analyzing Riker's usual strategy, analyzing how Riker is likely to change his strategy knowing Data knows his strategy, analyzing how Riker is likely to ''not'' change his strategy knowing that Data knows Riker knows Data knows his usually strategy, etc.

* This trope is one suggested reason why emotions were evolved in humans and other animals as a means of avoiding them. Too much time spent trying to analyze one's situation could mean the different between escaping a dangerous situation or not, if the situation you're in is so rude as to not remain static while the brain tries to work out the best solution. There is a story of a man whose brain had been damaged so that his emotional response was heavily muted but was otherwise fine -- he found that he would spend upwards of two hours driving around a parking lot at his local grocery store because he, relying only on his brain's reasoning ability, couldn't decide on which spot to take.

* This trope is one suggested reason why emotions were evolved in humans and other animals as a means of avoiding them. Too much time spent trying to analyze one's situation could mean the different between escaping a dangerous situation or not, if the situation you're in is so rude as to not remain static while the brain tries to work out the best solution. There is a story of a man whose brain had been damaged so that his emotional response was heavily muted but was otherwise fine -- he found that he would spend upwards of two hours driving around a parking lot at his local grocery store because his brain couldn't decide on which spot to take.

* [[http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/09/21/psychologist-shows-why-we-choke-under-pressure-and-how-avoid-it This article describes and explains the phenomenon]], and is also the TropeNamer. It's more complex and varied than simple ParalysisByAnalysis. Sometimes it's a desire to avert stereotypes (an Asian kid flunking math, a black kid who's bad at sports, a boy who really doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of a domineering father who he's actually a lot like). Sometimes it's ''because'' of stereotypes (an Asian kid being bad at sports, a black kid or a girl bad at math and science). There are a lot of ways to drive yourself to undeserved failure.

* [[http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/chokers.html This is ESPN's list]] of the ten worst chokes of sports history.
* [[http://golf.about.com/b/2006/06/22/the-biggest-chokes-in-golf-history.htm This list focuses on golf]].
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_%28sports%29 The other wiki]] has a list organized by sport.
* This can be an issue for children who aren't picky eaters the first time they go to a new restaurant: faced with a choice between a large number of menu items they have trouble making a decision because they want to try all of them.

Choking occurs when, instead of getting in the zone and shutting off the thinking, the expert starts thinking about what he's doing. He starts trying to control ''everything'', trying to account for every last variable. He gets in his head and because there's just too much to think about, he can't do anything. He's got the yips or, as {{the other wiki}} calls it, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_dystonia focal dystonia.]]

* [[ExploitedTrope Weaponized]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', with Ed the Undying's "[[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Curse_of_Indecision Curse of Indecision]]", which stuns the opponent for several turns by making them aware of ''every'' possible outcome of of ''every'' possible move.

It's the final quarter. The game is still too close to call. The clock is counting down. There are seconds to go. You have the ball. It's all up to you. And you stand there. And do nothing.

->''"There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. No-one can possibly predict them all, not even you. Which means that the first move can be terrifying. It's the furthest point from the end of the game, there's a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side... but it also means that if you make a mistake, there's a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax, and play."

* The ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'' webseries and novel imply that Sparadrap is compeltely immunne to it (mentionning that "pressure has no effect on him"), which helps his real-life profession as [[spoiler:a tennis player]] a lot.