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.
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.
THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE
HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.
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Labels: awareness, big impact, confidence, finish, information, interrupted, long-term, memory, motivation, procrastination, remember, self-esteem, short-term, stress, thoughts, unfinished tasks, urge, Zeigarnik effect
