In
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
, the Zeigarnik effect, named after Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist
Bluma Zeigarnik, occurs when an activity that has been interrupted may be more readily
recalled. It postulates that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. In
Gestalt psychology, the Zeigarnik effect has been used to demonstrate the general presence of Gestalt phenomena: not just appearing as perceptual effects, but also present in cognition.
The Zeigarnik effect should not be confused with the
Ovsiankina effect, an urge to complete tasks previously initiated.
Maria Ovsiankina, a colleague of Zeigarnik, investigated the effect of task interruption on the tendency to resume the task at the next opportunity.
Overview
Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist
Bluma Zeigarnik first studied the phenomenon after professor and
Gestalt psychologist
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin ( ; ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social psychology, social, industrial and organizational psychology, organizational, and applied psychology in the ...
noticed that a
waiter
Waiting staff (British English, BrE), waiters () / waitresses (), or servers (AmE) are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a Bar (establishment), bar and sometimes in private homes, attending to customers by supplying them with food an ...
had better recollections of still unpaid orders. However, after the completion of the task — after everyone had paid — the waiter was unable to remember any more details of the orders. Zeigarnik then designed a series of experiments to uncover the processes underlying the phenomenon. The research report was published in 1927, in the journal ''
Psychologische Forschung.''
[ pp. 300-314 in W. D. Ellis (Ed.), ''A Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology'', London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.]
The advantage of remembrance can be explained by looking at
Lewin's field theory: a task that has already been started establishes a task-specific tension, which improves cognitive accessibility of the relevant contents.
The tension is relieved upon completion of the task, but persists if it is interrupted. Through continuous tension, the content is made more easily accessible, and can be easily remembered.
[
The Zeigarnik effect suggests that students who suspend their study to perform unrelated activities (such as studying a different subject or playing a game), will remember material better than students who complete study sessions without a break (McKinney 1935; Zeigarnik 1927).]
Harden rule
Sportswriter Matt Moore has suggested that the Zeigarnik effect could explain the widespread criticism of the National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...
in allowing free throws
In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the Key (basketball), restricted ...
for a player "chucking it up whenever a guy comes near them". There is a stoppage of play with each foul. When repeatedly done, it is felt to build up a cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm (philosophy), norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the ...
against this move. The criticism necessitated a rule change penalizing this activity, known as the Harden Rule, named after its most prominent user, James Harden.
Criticism
The reliability of the effect has been a matter of some controversy.
Several studies, performed later in other countries, attempting to replicate Zeigarnik's experiment, failed to find any significant differences in recall between "finished" and "unfinished" (interrupted) tasks, for example Van Bergen (1968).
Usages
Software
The Zeigarnik effect is used in some SaaS (Software as a service) systems to onboard users faster and effectively.
Usually, it is implemented as user interactions gamification. Examples include:
* Progress trackers which inform users of how close they are to complete a task. For example, when users see a message like "Your profile is 64% complete", they are more likely to spend a few minutes on providing all missing details.
* Checklists to provide a clear step-by-step on-boarding flow.
See also
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References
Further reading
Zeigarnik
* pp. 300-314 i
W. D. Ellis (Ed.), ''A Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology'', London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Others
* Burke W.W., "A Perspective on the Field of Organization Development and Change: The Zeigarnik Effect", ''The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science'', Vol.47, No.2, (June 2011), pp.143-167.
*
* Mazur, Elena, "The Zeigarnik Effect and the Concept of Unfinished Business in Gestalt Therapy", ''British Gestalt Journal'', Vol.5, No.1, (1996), pp.18-23.
* Oyama, Yoshinori, Manalo, Emmanuel & Nakatan, Yoshihide (2018), "The Hemingway effect: How failing to finish a task can have a positive effect on motivation", ''Thinking Skills and Creativity''
doi=10.1016/j.tsc.2018.01.001
* Savitsky, K., Medvec, V.H. & Gilovich, T., "Remembering and Regretting: The Zeigarnik Effect and the Cognitive Availability of Regrettable Actions and Inactions", ''Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin'', Vol.23, No.3, (March 1997), pp.248-257
doi=10.1177/0146167297233004
Syrek, C.J., Weigelt, O., Peifer, C. & Antoni, C.H., "Zeigarnik's sleepless nights: How unfinished tasks at the end of the week impair employee sleep on the weekend through rumination", ''Journal of Occupational Health Psychology'', Vol.22, No.2, (April 2017), pp.225-238.
Van Bergen, Annie, ''Task Interruption'', North-Holland, (Amsterdam), 1968.
Weiner, B., Johnson, P.B. & Mehrabian, A., "Achievement Motivation and the Recall of Incomplete and Completed Exam Questions", ''Journal of Educational Psychology'', Vol.59, No.3, (June 1968), pp.181-185.
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External links
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