Growing body of research shows how efforts backfire in sneaky ways: we fail in our best efforts because of our best efforts
The great Harvard psychologist Dan Wegner, who died earlier this year, wrote a famous article entitled How To Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion (pdf). It concerned a very specific kind of mistake, which he labelled the "precisely counterintuitive error" – the kind of screw-up so obviously calamitous that you think about it in advance and decide you definitely won't let it happen:
"We see a rut coming up in the road ahead and proceed to steer our bike right into it. We make a mental note not to mention a sore point in conversation and then cringe in horror as we blurt out exactly that thing. We carefully cradle the glass of red wine as we cross the room, all the while thinking 'don't spill,' and then juggle it onto the carpet under the gaze of our host."
This is an example of what psychologists call an "ironic effect": it's not just that we fail in our best efforts, but that we fail because of our best efforts. If you hadn't given much thought to the wine, you'd probably not have disgraced yourself.
The depressingly popular field of "positive thinking" is basically one long litany of ironic effects, because trying too hard to be happy makes people miserable. (I explore this in my book The Antidote – and now I just have to hope that this self-promotional reference doesn't have the ironic effect of making you less likely to buy it.) But ironic effects have been cropping up in a whole range of other contexts, too. Here are three reported in the last few weeks alone:
Stigmatising obesity makes overweight people eat more, not less
For a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, a group of women read an article suggesting that overweight people find it harder to get jobs; others read an article making the same point about smokers, while still others read no article at all. Afterwards, they were shown into a break room with bowls full of junk-food snacks. As Tom Jacobs explains at Pacific Standard, among women who already perceived themselves as overweight, those exposed to the weight-related message consumed about 80 calories more, on average, than those who read the article on smoking. (Questionnaire responses also implied they felt less in control of their eating.) Stigmatisation triggers anxiety, which triggers eating. For women who didn't see themselves as overweight, the weight-related article increased their sense of control over their food consumption – which shows why non-overweight people probably shouldn't be in sole charge of designing anti-obesity campaigns: what makes them feel better about food has the opposite effect on the people they need to reach. Campaigns "need to emphasize the positive aspects to losing weight," Jacobs concludes, "rather than the negative aspects of being fat." (Relatedly: moderate exercise is more motivating than hard training.)
Supporting a good cause on Facebook makes people less likely to give money or time
There are many reasons to be sceptical of the benefits of "slacktivism" – Joseph Kony's still at large, for a start – but new research (pdf) suggests it might be actively damaging. In a series of experiments at the University of British Columbia, people were invited to make low-cost expressions of support for good causes, either privately (by signing a petition) or publicly (by coming to the front of the room to sign the petition, accepting lapel pins, etc). The results, in brief: the more public the commitment, the less willing people are to give a higher-cost donation of money or time. "Once we’ve shown our support and earned the status associated with joining a cause," explains Adam Grant, outlining the likely mechanism involved, "we feel less obligated to follow through with a meaningful contribution to that cause." He offers some alternative tactics for fundraisers here.
Awareness campaigns get forgotten by the people who need them most
"Motivated forgetting" is an especially galling species of ironic effect: when a message makes you feel vulnerable – for example, by reminding you of the ways in which your gender or ethnicity places you at a disadvantage – you're more likely to find ways, conscious or otherwise, to forget it, in order to retain a sense of self-control. In a study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, marketing experts found that students who were reminded of their university's poor performance were less likely to remember an advertisement offering a discount at the campus bookshop. "Consider an advertisement for breast cancer prevention," the researchers write. "If the ad makes … women’s vulnerability to the disease" salient in their minds, they could "feel threatened and exhibit defensive responses, such as decreased ad memory."
In short: if you're trying to change behaviour or beliefs – your own, or other people's – don't assume that the most direct, vigorous or effortful route is necessarily the most effective one. The human mind is much, much more perverse and annoying than that.
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image: © derick nolans