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posted by martyb on Sunday August 23 2020, @07:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-am-Bytram! dept.

The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you:

A few years ago, assistant psychology professor [at Hamilton College in New York State, Rachel] White took a group of six-year-olds and set them a test of concentration on a computer, in which a series of images flashed and they had to press the space bar whenever they saw a picture of cheese. The task was designed to be rather boring, but the children were told that it was “a very important activity” and that they would be a “good helper” if they worked on the task for as long as possible – increasing their motivation to persevere. As a potential distraction, the researchers also left them with an iPad, with a much more fun game designed to lure them away.

Beforehand, the children were told that it could sometimes be helpful to think about their feelings, if the task got too boring. Some were told to think “Am I working hard?” while others were encouraged to think in the third-person (“Is Hannah working hard?”). A third group were given the option to change persona entirely by inhabiting the role of their favourite fictional hero, such as Batman or Dora the Explorer. They were even given props to dress up, and when they got bored, they were told to consider their behaviour as if they were the actual character, asking, for instance, “Is Batman working hard?”

The researchers had suspected that the alter ego would be a more extreme form of self-distancing, and the results showed exactly that. While the children thinking in the third person spent about 10% more of the total available time on the task that those thinking in the first person, it was the children inhabiting their alter egos who stuck it out for the longest of all. Overall, they spent 13% more of the total available time on the task than those thinking in the third person (and 23% more than those thinking about their behaviour in the first person).

White has also found that adopting an alter ego can also help children to concentrate on a complex card game, in which they had to follow complex rules that kept on changing. Once again, “the Batman effect” seemed to have increased their resolve and concentration, improving their “executive function”.

[...] If you want to try it yourself, White suggests picking a different person for different types of goals – maybe a wise member of your family for a personal dilemma, or a work mentor for a professional problem. “When I was a postdoc, we had a little saying in our lab that if you're an undergrad, pretend to be a grad student. If you are a grad student, pretend to be a postdoc, and if you're a postdoc, pretend to be the leader of the lab – just to get you to that next level,” she says.

Journal Reference:
APA PsycNet, (DOI: 10.1037/emo0000491)
Redirecting, (DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2016.11.008)
Sanda Dolcos, Dolores Albarracin. The inner speech of behavioral regulation: Intentions and task performance strengthen when you talk to yourself as a You, European Journal of Social Psychology (DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2048)
Distanced Self-Talk Enhances Goal Pursuit to Eat Healthier:, Clinical Psychological Science (DOI: 10.1177/2167702619896366)
Rachel E. White, Emily O. Prager, Catherine Schaefer, et al. The “Batman Effect”: Improving Perseverance in Young Children, Child Development (DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12695)


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Fuck You Niggers on Sunday August 23 2020, @07:41AM (6 children)

    by Fuck You Niggers (12375) on Sunday August 23 2020, @07:41AM (#1040705)

    Holy fuck this site is garbage! This article is fucking retarded psychobabble bullshit. Don't ever post bullshit garbage like this again. That's what happens when you let dipshits like aristarchus and Azuma Hazuki influence the site. I still can't get over how bad this shithole site has become. Get rid of the psychobabble and the niggers posting here. Remove the leftist shitbags, too. Those would be good ways to start improving stuff around this piece of shit site.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:08AM

    by Booga1 (6333) on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:08AM (#1040711)

    Oh man, if you think this site is bad, just wait until you see the rest of the internet!

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:39AM (1 child)

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:39AM (#1040718) Journal

    spotted the aristarchus' alter ego...

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    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2020, @08:46AM (#1040721)

      Gotta go for the extremes, read an article about this very phenomenom recently, let me see if i can find the link...

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:44PM (#1040795)

    You know, people can submit stories to the site. If there were enough quality news submitted then fluff would get pushed to the bottom.

    Unfortunately it is also true that even the larger, more popular, news sites have devolved in to publishing fluff and clickbait. Partly due to cost cutting and also not much news going on due to the pandemic.

    Back in the late 90s early 00s, every day would have dozens of fresh interesting nerdy news stories, about exciting new technologies, projects, discoveries, etc. These days most tech news is about things falling apart, or big companies turning tech against us. The rest of the "news" is just AI generated fluff literally optimized around generating clicks.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Tork on Sunday August 23 2020, @06:29PM

    by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 23 2020, @06:29PM (#1040882)
    Heh. So who'd you lose an argument with?
    --
    🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @07:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2020, @07:30AM (#1041070)

    since you are a little slow let me break it down for you

    psicobabble in NY got funds to manipulate children to think obey and work for other people is fulfilling and you are being told that these things are empowering. Next time just keep your whore mouth shut