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How to Improve Your Career With the Batman Effect
The other day, while I was scrolling on Quora, I came across an article by David Robson about The Batman effect.
The Batman effect is an experiment in psychological distancing done by doctor Rachel White in 2017.
The test involved a group of six years old. All children were put in front of a repetitive and annoying task. Before the task began, a third of the children were told to imagine themselves as their favorite heroes, such as Batman, and to wonder in times of distress what he would do in that situation.
The result of the test showed that the kids who personified themselves in Batman spent 23% more time trying to resolve the impossible puzzle than the children who had a first-person perspective that quit just after a couple of minutes.
They know that Batman wasn’t going to leave a puzzle unsolved, so they put more effort into it.
But why simply thinking of themselves as superheroes made so much difference?
Practice Self-Distancing from Yourself
Inventing an alter ego to deal with some stressful situations in our life will benefit you even if you’re not a kid anymore.
The alter ego to be invented should be a character from which you feel far away from everyday life in order to create distance.
The effort of thinking about how another person would tackle the task or how they would make a decision can move you away from your usual mental patterns.
It brings to the table an external opinion that will make you able to see the situation more clearly and more rationally.
