Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam here. Backup plans, we've always been told are a good idea, like your mom used to tell you about your dream of becoming a Hollywood actor or getting together with that crush who just clearly wasn't interested. Remember, hon, it's nice to have something to fall back on just in case the problem is and maybe we've known this all along. Backup plans can be
kind of lame in the case of people. You're not doing yourself or your alternative partner justice if you're thinking about someone else the whole time, But the mere idea of a backup plan can set you up to lose. At least that's what g. Hay Shin said back when house Stuff Works spoke with her in for the article that this episode is based on. She's currently a visiting
lecturer at the Yale School of Management. She said, people fear failure and that makes them want to make a backup plan, but making a backup plan can actually make it more likely that failure comes to you. Shin and her colleague Katherine L. Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School figured that out by doing what all good academics do, experimenting. They started off by surveying people at
a United States train station about backup plans. Almost half of the surveyed population had one for an identified goal. Then took it further with a test that promised undergraduates and energy bar for performing well and unscrambling words into sentences. The researchers asked half of the students to think about alternate ways backup plans to get snacks. Sure Enough, the group who had a fallback plan for scoring an energy bar if they failed to do their task didn't perform
as well in constructing the sentences. Shin and Milkman published the results of their study in a twenty sixteen journal article titled how backup plans can harm goal pursuit The unexpected downside of being prepared for failure A. Milkman and Shin wrote in Scientific American, many of the goals we pursue in life require a great deal of effort, and we can't be certain of achieving them. The insurance of
having a backup plan is thus very attractive. However, this psychological insurance, just like other insurances, may come with the price Shin It drew from personal experience to come up with the idea for the study. After earning her PhD from Wharton, she wandered into the job market looking for something in academia. Jobs like the ones she was after aren't that easy to come by? Oh what if she
looked and looked and looked and didn't find anything. What then, Shin said, it's really interesting and fascinating how we get those ideas. I was thinking, somehow, if I do make a backup plan, somehow I think it will make it more likely that I might fail. It will kind of hurt my chances of success. So what's the harm in a backup plan? It's simple. Really, people are less motivated and put in less effort to succeed when they know
the consequences of failure aren't terribly severe. If you have that insurance, as Milkman called it, say a totally decent job acting in a local theater in case Hollywood falls through. You may not work as hard at Hollywood because even if you fail, you'll be okay. The authors wrote, you are effectively constructing an emotional safety net, which may dampen your goal desire. Shin and Milkman found that even thinking about a backup plan can impede your progress in achieving
that primary goal. Shin said, it's not about having a backup option that we can take into the real world. What we're studying here is more about planning what you're doing in your mind. A commitment, or the desire and effort needed to reach a goal, played a huge part in the study. The authors wrote, primary goal commitment is increased by having an additional means of attaining the primary goal, but primary goal desire is decreased by making a backup plan.
Making plans isn't all bad, Shin said, In fact, it can be quite good. Many studies point out that there's a direct and positive correlation between making plans and success
in achieving those goals. The difference those studies examined plans that are designed to help you reach your initial goal, perhaps multiple plans that are all designed to help you reach that goal, not backup plans in case you fail, and Shin was quick to point out that the study only looks at goals that can be achieved through effort.
Those are the ones affected negatively by thinking about or having a plan b for other goals, like ones that involved luck, say, a desire to get rich playing the stock market, or to retire to Aruba once you hit on one of those scratch off lottery tickets. For those, it's probably best to have a backup plan. Yeah. Today's episode is based on the article gotta backup plan, think about ditching it on how stuff works dot com, written
by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot com, and it is produced by Tyler Clain. Or more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.