Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Volke bam here with a classic episode from our previous host, Christian Sager. To be honest, I can find it hard to focus even on the best of days, and it's certainly a struggle with everything going on right now. But some psychological research from a few years back found a mental exercise that might help. Hey brain Stuff is Christian Sager here. Pretending is fun. Take
the simple task of making breakfast. Would you rather make scrambled eggs while pondering your utility payments? Or say, pretend you're a short order cook tasked with making the world's best scrambled eggs for a celebrity Breakfast is a lot more interesting when there's something at steak. According to a recent study in the journal Child Development, kids are savvy to this trick. Self distancing is when we view personal
experiences from an outsider's perspective. Aiming to test the benefits of this on children's perseverance, the researchers asked one hundred and eighty kids ages four or six to do a pretty boring computer task for ten minutes. Although all the kids had to do was press a key when they saw a certain image. They were told the task was important and that they had to be good helpers. They could take breaks to play a game on an iPad
if they wanted. The researchers split the kids into three groups and asked each to think about its performance on the given task from a certain perspective, self immersed, third person or exemplar. Kids in the self immersed group asked themselves, am I working hard? The third person group reflected on the task by asking, is Christian Sager working hard? Now?
That's just me doing the third person there and the exemplar group, those children imagined they were either Batman, Bob the Builder, Rapuns or Dora the Explorer, well known characters who are model hard workers, and were given props to help them get in character. They were told to ask themselves, for example, is Batman working hard? Every minute of the task. A recorded voice prompted the children with their allotted question.
The researchers found that the kids in both age groups who imagined themselves as a character spent a longer time on the task, although predictably, the younger kids spent less time on the task than the older kids Across the board. The six year olds who were asked to reflect in person spent about thirty five percent of the time on the task rather than on break, and the four year
olds just over twenty. But the children pretending to be fictional heroes spent fifty five percent of their time working, while the four year olds in this group spent thirty two percent of their time on task. The researchers posit that when the children used third person or impersonated characters, the kids distance themselves from the boring task and tempting game, allowing them to gain more focus and self control. Taking an outsider's perspective on one's own behavior can improve perseverance
in the face of entertaining distractions. This is what the researchers say in their study, but interpreting these results is not so simple. Is pretending to be a character just fun? Does it make kids think like they're powerful alter egos? The study authors say Answering these questions will require more research. Regardless, the current study suggests that for kids, sticking to a
task might be easier with role play. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go change outfits because I am Vengeance, I am the Knight Today's episode was written by Kate Kirshner and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Clay. For more on listen lots of other topics, visit how suffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio. Or more podcasts in my heart Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,