Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain
Speaker 1: stuff is Christian saga here pretending is fun. Take the
Speaker 1: simple task of making breakfast. Would you rather make scrambled
Speaker 1: eggs while pondering your utility payments? Or say, pretend you're
Speaker 1: a short order cook tasked with making the world's best
Speaker 1: scrambled eggs for a celebrity breakfast is a lot more
Speaker 1: interesting when there's something at stake. According to a recent
Speaker 1: study in the journal Child Development, kids are savvy to
Speaker 1: this trick. Self distancing is when we view personal experiences
Speaker 1: from an outsider's perspective. Aiming to test the benefits of
Speaker 1: this on children's perseverance, the researchers asked one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty kids ages four or six to do a pretty
Speaker 1: boring computer task for ten minutes. Although all the kids
Speaker 1: had to do was press a key when they saw
Speaker 1: a certain image, they were told the task was important
Speaker 1: and that they had to be good helpers. They could
Speaker 1: take breaks to play a game on an iPad if
Speaker 1: they wanted. The researchers split the kids into three groups
Speaker 1: and asked each to think about its performance on the
Speaker 1: given task from a certain perspective self immersed third person
Speaker 1: or exemplar? Kids in the self immersed group asked themselves,
Speaker 1: am I working hard? The third person group reflected on
Speaker 1: the task by asking, is Christian Sager working hard? Now?
Speaker 1: That's just me doing the third person there and the
Speaker 1: exemplar group, those children imagined they were either Batman, Bob
Speaker 1: the Builder, Rapunzel, or Dora the Explorer, well known characters
Speaker 1: who are model hard workers, and were given props to
Speaker 1: help them get in character. They were told to ask themselves,
Speaker 1: for example, is Batman working hard? Every minute of the task.
Speaker 1: A recorded voice prompted the children with their allotted question.
Speaker 1: The researchers found at the kids in both age groups
Speaker 1: who imagined themselves as a character spent a longer time
Speaker 1: on the task, although predictably the younger kids spent less
Speaker 1: time on the task than the older kids across the board.
Speaker 1: The six year olds who were asked to reflect in
Speaker 1: person spent about thirty five percent of the time on
Speaker 1: the task rather than on break in the four year
Speaker 1: olds just over, but the children pretending to be fictional
Speaker 1: heroes spent fifty five percent of their time working, while
Speaker 1: the four year olds in this group spent thirty two
Speaker 1: percent of their time on task. The researchers posit that
Speaker 1: when the children used third person or impersonated characters, the
Speaker 1: kids distanced themselves from the boring task and tempting game,
Speaker 1: allowing them to gain more focus and self control. Taking
Speaker 1: an outsider's perspective on one's own behavior can improve perseverance
Speaker 1: in the face of entertaining distraction. This is what the
Speaker 1: researchers say in their study, but interpreting these results is
Speaker 1: not so simple. Is pretending to be a character just fun?
Speaker 1: Does it make kids think like they're powerful alter egos?
Speaker 1: The study authors say, Answering these questions will require more research. Regardless,
Speaker 1: the current study suggests that for kids, sticking to a
Speaker 1: task might be easier with role play. Now, if you'll
Speaker 1: excuse me, I've got to go change outfits because I
Speaker 1: am vengeance. I am the Night. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Kate Kirshner, produced by Tristan McNeil and For more
Speaker 1: on this and other topics, please visit us at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.