Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam here. Backup plans, we've always
Speaker 1: been told are a good idea, like your mom used
Speaker 1: to tell you about your dream of becoming a Hollywood
Speaker 1: actor or getting together with that crush who just clearly
Speaker 1: wasn't interested. Remember, hon, it's nice to have something to
Speaker 1: fall back on just in case the problem is and
Speaker 1: maybe we've known this all along. Backup plans can be
Speaker 1: kind of lame in the case of people. You're not
Speaker 1: doing yourself or your alternative partner justice if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about someone else the whole time, But the mere idea
Speaker 1: of a backup plan can set you up to lose.
Speaker 1: At least that's what g. Hay Shin said back when
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works spoke with her in for the article
Speaker 1: that this episode is based on. She's currently a visiting
Speaker 1: lecturer at the Yale School of Management. She said, people
Speaker 1: fear failure and that makes them want to make a
Speaker 1: backup plan, but making a backup plan can actually make
Speaker 1: it more likely that failure comes to you. Shin and
Speaker 1: her colleague Katherine L. Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania's
Speaker 1: Wharton School figured that out by doing what all good
Speaker 1: academics do, experimenting. They started off by surveying people at
Speaker 1: a United States train station about backup plans. Almost half
Speaker 1: of the surveyed population had one for an identified goal.
Speaker 1: Then took it further with a test that promised undergraduates
Speaker 1: and energy bar for performing well and unscrambling words into sentences.
Speaker 1: The researchers asked half of the students to think about
Speaker 1: alternate ways backup plans to get snacks. Sure Enough, the
Speaker 1: group who had a fallback plan for scoring an energy
Speaker 1: bar if they failed to do their task didn't perform
Speaker 1: as well in constructing the sentences. Shin and Milkman published
Speaker 1: the results of their study in a twenty sixteen journal
Speaker 1: article titled how backup plans can harm goal pursuit The
Speaker 1: unexpected downside of being prepared for failure A. Milkman and
Speaker 1: Shin wrote in Scientific American, many of the goals we
Speaker 1: pursue in life require a great deal of effort, and
Speaker 1: we can't be certain of achieving them. The insurance of
Speaker 1: having a backup plan is thus very attractive. However, this
Speaker 1: psychological insurance, just like other insurances, may come with the
Speaker 1: price Shin It drew from personal experience to come up
Speaker 1: with the idea for the study. After earning her PhD
Speaker 1: from Wharton, she wandered into the job market looking for
Speaker 1: something in academia. Jobs like the ones she was after
Speaker 1: aren't that easy to come by? Oh what if she
Speaker 1: looked and looked and looked and didn't find anything. What then,
Speaker 1: Shin said, it's really interesting and fascinating how we get
Speaker 1: those ideas. I was thinking, somehow, if I do make
Speaker 1: a backup plan, somehow I think it will make it
Speaker 1: more likely that I might fail. It will kind of
Speaker 1: hurt my chances of success. So what's the harm in
Speaker 1: a backup plan? It's simple. Really, people are less motivated
Speaker 1: and put in less effort to succeed when they know
Speaker 1: the consequences of failure aren't terribly severe. If you have
Speaker 1: that insurance, as Milkman called it, say a totally decent
Speaker 1: job acting in a local theater in case Hollywood falls through.
Speaker 1: You may not work as hard at Hollywood because even
Speaker 1: if you fail, you'll be okay. The authors wrote, you
Speaker 1: are effectively constructing an emotional safety net, which may dampen
Speaker 1: your goal desire. Shin and Milkman found that even thinking
Speaker 1: about a backup plan can impede your progress in achieving
Speaker 1: that primary goal. Shin said, it's not about having a
Speaker 1: backup option that we can take into the real world.
Speaker 1: What we're studying here is more about planning what you're
Speaker 1: doing in your mind. A commitment, or the desire and
Speaker 1: effort needed to reach a goal, played a huge part
Speaker 1: in the study. The authors wrote, primary goal commitment is
Speaker 1: increased by having an additional means of attaining the primary goal,
Speaker 1: but primary goal desire is decreased by making a backup plan.
Speaker 1: Making plans isn't all bad, Shin said, In fact, it
Speaker 1: can be quite good. Many studies point out that there's
Speaker 1: a direct and positive correlation between making plans and success
Speaker 1: in achieving those goals. The difference those studies examined plans
Speaker 1: that are designed to help you reach your initial goal,
Speaker 1: perhaps multiple plans that are all designed to help you
Speaker 1: reach that goal, not backup plans in case you fail,
Speaker 1: and Shin was quick to point out that the study
Speaker 1: only looks at goals that can be achieved through effort.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones affected negatively by thinking about or
Speaker 1: having a plan b for other goals, like ones that
Speaker 1: involved luck, say, a desire to get rich playing the
Speaker 1: stock market, or to retire to Aruba once you hit
Speaker 1: on one of those scratch off lottery tickets. For those,
Speaker 1: it's probably best to have a backup plan. Yeah. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article gotta backup plan, think
Speaker 1: about ditching it on how stuff works dot com, written
Speaker 1: by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot com, and
Speaker 1: it is produced by Tyler Clain. Or more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.