It is when we watched on TV screen the two WTC towers collapsing,
that it became possible to experience the falsity of the "reality
TV shows": even if this shows are "for real," people still act in
them - they simply play themselves. The standard disclaimer in a
novel ("characters in this text are a fiction, every resemblance
with the real life characters is purely contingent") holds also
for the participants of the reality soaps: what we see there are
fictional characters, even if they play themselves for the real.
On choking in sports, but has info on stereotyping's effects on performance as well as the division of identity into separate parts. Identity Threat particularly interesting.