Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Volke bam here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our previous host, Christian Sager. To be honest, I
Speaker 1: can find it hard to focus even on the best
Speaker 1: of days, and it's certainly a struggle with everything going
Speaker 1: on right now. But some psychological research from a few
Speaker 1: years back found a mental exercise that might help. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff is Christian Sager here. Pretending is fun. Take
Speaker 1: the simple task of making breakfast. Would you rather make
Speaker 1: scrambled eggs while pondering your utility payments? Or say, pretend
Speaker 1: you're a short order cook tasked with making the world's
Speaker 1: best scrambled eggs for a celebrity Breakfast is a lot
Speaker 1: more interesting when there's something at steak. According to a
Speaker 1: recent study in the journal Child Development, kids are savvy
Speaker 1: to this trick. Self distancing is when we view personal
Speaker 1: experiences from an outsider's perspective. Aiming to test the benefits
Speaker 1: of this on children's perseverance, the researchers asked one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty kids ages four or six to do a
Speaker 1: pretty boring computer task for ten minutes. Although all the
Speaker 1: kids had to do was press a key when they
Speaker 1: saw a certain image. They were told the task was
Speaker 1: important and that they had to be good helpers. They
Speaker 1: could take breaks to play a game on an iPad
Speaker 1: if they wanted. The researchers split the kids into three
Speaker 1: groups and asked each to think about its performance on
Speaker 1: the given task from a certain perspective, self immersed, third
Speaker 1: person 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, Rapuns 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 that 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, and the four year
Speaker 1: olds just over twenty. But the children pretending to be
Speaker 1: fictional heroes spent fifty five percent of their time working,
Speaker 1: while the four year olds in this group spent thirty
Speaker 1: two percent of their time on task. The researchers posit
Speaker 1: that when the children used third person or impersonated characters,
Speaker 1: the kids distance 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 distractions. 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 Knight Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Kate Kirshner and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Clay.
Speaker 1: For more on listen lots of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: suffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio.
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