A few years ago, my wife and I were running together on a trail at a park near our house. I was struggling some, and she was trying her best to help me. She kept telling me, "Come on! You can do it!" For a lot of people, these words of encouragement would motivate us to push harder, but for me it just made we want to quit. I told her that she wasn't helping me, so she stopped encouraging me. I started to wonder why her words of encouragement seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. I think I finally learned why only now, several years later.
I recently came across a "Defend Your Research" interview ("If you want to motivate someone, shut up already") in Harvard Business Review by Brandon Irwin, a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology at Kansas State University. Irwin actually studies what is known as the Köhler effect in psychology, named after the German psychologist Otto Köhler, who first studied motivation in groups in the 1920's. Köhler asked several members of an amateur rowing club to do standing arm curls with a heavy barbell until they were so exhausted that they could not lift it anymore. They performed the task alone or in two- and three-person groups. When working in groups, all of the members held a single barbell that was twice as heavy for two-person groups and three times as heavy for three-person groups. In other words, if one person quit, the rest of the group would struggle to continue after a short time ("A chain is only as strong as the weakest link!"). Köhler found that the groups persisted longer than their weakest members had persisted as individuals. The effect of being in a group on motivation was the largest when the members of the group were moderately different in ability. If the difference in ability was very small, or it if was very big, the effect of group participation on motivation was not as significant.
The Köhler effect suggests then that a person works harder when he or she is a member of a group or team compared to when working alone. That makes intuitive sense, but we still don't know why I wasn't motivated by my wife's encouragement. Irwin conducted a study in which college students performed a series of plank exercises, in which they were told to hold the plank for as long as possible. The study participants performed the first series of plank exercises alone, and then they repeated the same exercise with an online partner (the online partner was always a fitness instructor who was able to hold the plank for longer than the study participants). Half of the time, the partner remained quiet and just performed the plank. However, the other half of the time, the partner would provide words of encouragement, such as "Come on", "You got this", or "You can do it".
Consistent with the Köhler effect, study participants consistently performed better when they had partners compared to when they were alone. Surprisingly however, participants were able to hold the plank position for longer when their partners were silent! Those with silent partners performed 33% longer than when they were alone, while those with the active partner shouting words of encouragement only performed 22% longer than when they were alone.
Based on questionnaires and interviews performed after the tests, Irwin speculated that study participants believed that they were just as good as their partners (despite evidence to the contrary). In order to avoid being the "weakest link", they performed better when part of a team (consistent again with the Köhler effect). However, when the partner was shouting words of encouragement, study participants thought that they were trying to motivate themselves, which made them believe that the partners were less capable (the partner was the "weakest link"), which decreased their motivation to push harder (i.e., the Köhler effect no longer applied).
Let me be clear. When my wife and I were running, I didn't think that I was the superior runner and I knew she was trying to encourage me, not herself! Regardless, I still find the results of this study to be of significant interest, even if they don't necessarily answer my original question. Irwin mentioned a follow-up study in the "Defend Your Research" article (see "Aerobic exercise is promoted when individual performance affects the group"). The set-up in this study was similar to the plank study, except in this case participants rode a stationary bike over five sessions with and without a virtual partner. Here, all of the virtual partners remained silent. Half of the participants were told that they were on a team and contributing to the total team score, while the other half rode alone. Again, participants performed better when they were with a partner. However, participants who were on a team tripled their time on the stationary bikes! These results are again highly consistent with the Köhler effect.
Okay, what's the take-home message here? First (and perhaps most importantly), as leaders we should leverage the powerful motivational aspects of participating on a team (i.e., the Köhler effect). If you want someone to perform better, put them in a group! Second, if you want to motivate, encourage, and inspire someone to work harder, direct your words of encouragement to them specifically by using their first name (e.g., "Come on, Derek! You can do it!" instead of "Come on! You can do it!").
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