The Zeigarnik Effect
If you've ever found yourself interrupted
by intrusive thoughts and unfinished work, there is a reason why it's so
hard to stop thinking about uncompleted and interrupted tasks.
According to psychologists, this is referred to as the Zeigarnik effect,
or the tendency to better remember unfinished tasks than completed
ones. Let's take a closer look at the Zeigarnik effect.
If you have started to work on something
but were unable to finish it, thoughts of the unfinished work continue
to come into your mind, even when you have moved on to other things.
These thoughts urge you to go back and finish what you have already
begun. This is why you keep thinking about the page-turner, or why you
want to keep playing a video game until you complete it. So, even when
we try to move on to other things, unfinished work continues to exert an
influence.
You've likely also experienced this effect while in school. For
instance, while you've likely had a fairly good recall for the
information you were studying before an exam, after an exam, most of us
tend to have difficulty remembering all of the things that they studied.
When you no longer have immediate use for something, the information
tends to flush out of your memory.
This effect was first discovered and observed by a Russian Psychologist,
Bluma Zeigarnik. He was a student of influential theorist Kurt Lewin.
While sitting in a busy restaurant in Vienna, she had noted that the
waiters had better memories of unpaid orders. But, she came to realize
that once the bill was paid, the waiters had difficulty remembering the
exact details of the orders.
So, in a series of experiments, participants were asked to complete
simple tasks which included placing beads on a string, putting puzzles
together, or solving math problems. Halfway through the tasks, the
participants were interrupted. After an hour, Zeigarnik asked the
participants to describe what they had been working on. She then
discovered that those who had their work interrupted were twice as
likely to remember what they had been doing in comparison to those who
had actually completed the tasks.
In another version of the experiment, she found that adult participants
were able to remember unfinished tasks 90% more often than they did the
finished tasks. Her initial studies were described in a paper titled 'On
Finished and Unfinished Tasks' which was published in 1927.
In order to further explore the effect,
during the 1960s, memory researcher John Baddeley explored these
findings in an experiment. Participants were given a limited period of
time to solve a set of anagrams. If they were unable to solve the
anagram before the time was up, they were given the word answer. Later,
when the participants were asked to recall the word in the anagrams,
they had demonstrated a better memory for the words they did not solve.
This supports Zeigarnik's finding that people have a better memory in
unfinished projects or interrupted information.
However, not all research has found support for the effect. Some of the
studies have failed to show the same effect, while other researchers
have found that there are a variety of factors that may influence the
strength of the effect. For instance, studies have shown that motivation
can have a big impact on how well people remember information. But, how
does it work? Short-term memory is limited both in its capacity and
duration. Typically, we can only manage to retain a number of things in
memory. And, even then we need to keep rehearsing the information so as
to put a hold on it. This requires quite a bit of mental effort, and,
not surprisingly, the more that you try to keep in your short-term
memory, the harder you need to work to get it to stay there.
Take waiters as an example, they have to remember a lot of details about
the tables they are serving. This includes information about what
people ordered as well as what they are drinking. This all needs to be
retained in their memory until the customers have finished their meals.
So, to deal with this overload of data, most people tend to rely on
mental tricks as this allows them to remember better a great deal of
information. One example of this is the Zeigarnik effect in which we
hold on to this information in the short-term by constantly pulling it
back into awareness. So, by reminding ourselves of uncompleted tasks
often, we are better able to remember them until they are complete.
This effect does not just impact memory in the short-term. Any
unfinished tasks such as goals that we must still reach can continue to
intrude into our thoughts over extended periods of time. The Zeigarnik
effect reveals a great deal about how memories work. Once the
information is perceived it is often stored in sensory memory, but only
for a brief period of time. So, when we pay attention to information, it
moves into short-term memory. But, many memories that make it to
short-term are forgotten fairly quickly. Nevertheless, through the
process of active rehearsal, some of this information is able to move
into long-term memory.
To explain why this occurs, Zeigarnik suggested that failing to complete
a task creates underlying cognitive tension. This will result in
greater mental effort and rehearsal in order to keep the task at the
forefront of awareness. Once completed, the mind is then able to let go
of these efforts.
The Psychology of Forgetting and Why Memory
Fails
The Zeigarnik effect is more than just an intriguing observation about
how the human brain works. It can actually have implications in your
day-to-day life and can even use this psychological phenomenon to your
advantage. While common sense might tell you that finishing a task is
the best way to approach a goal, the Zeigarnik effect suggests being
interrupted during a task as a strong and effective strategy for
improving your ability to remember information.
Zeigarnik Effect
How to Overcome Procrastination
Often, we put off tasks until the last moment, to complete them in a
frenzied rush in order to meet a deadline. But this tenancy leads to a
great deal of stress and can result in poor performance. One way to
overcome procrastination is to put the Zeigarnik effect to work. Start
off by taking the first step no matter how small and once you've begun,
but not finished, you will find yourself thinking of the task until it
is complete. While you might not finish it all at once, each small step
you take brings you closer to your end goal. This approach will help
keep you motivated to finish and can also lead to a sense of
accomplishment once you have finished a job, thus enabling you to apply
your mental energies elsewhere.
So to stop procrastinating, generate interest and attention. In fact,
even advertisers and marketers utilize the Zeigarnik effect to encourage
consumers to purchase products. Filmmakers, for instance, create movie
trailers that are designed to attract attention by leaving out critical
details. This helps draw the viewers' attention, but it leaves people
wanting more. So in order to obtain the details, people must see the
movie. But it doesn't just stop at movies. Television programs also make
use of this strategy and episodes often end during a moment of high
action, leaving a number of things unresolved. So, in order to resolve
the tension created by the cliffhanger, viewers must tune into the next
episode to find out what happens.
Of course, the Zeigarnik effect is not necessarily always beneficial.
When you fail to complete tasks, they can prey on your mind and intrude
on your thoughts, thus creating stress. These invasive thoughts can
cause you to feel anxious and contribute to sleep disturbances. The
effect can also play a role in overcoming such difficulties. In this
case, repeated thoughts can motivate people to finish the tasks they
have started. And as a result, can lead to feelings of accomplishment,
self-esteem, and self-confidence.