But a more likely explanation for your good deed is that you felt subtle outside pressure to return the wallet - perhaps you wanted to impress those around you.īecause you fail to recognize this pressure, you draw the conclusion that you’re honest and kind, and as a result, you begin to modify future attitudes and actions to match this self-perception. If you ever returned a lost wallet, you probably told yourself you did it because you’re an honest person. These findings tie in with the self-perception theory, which says we draw conclusions about who we are from the behaviors we engage in.
You’d probably do your best to stick with the new routine for a week or two, but give up once the novelty wears off.īut if you’d given yourself the option of not doing any exercise at all and still picked the morning jog, you’d be more likely to push through the adversity because you know you’d rather jog than not exercise at all.īy simply rephrasing the question, you learned something about your attitude and preferences. Schriftįor instance, if you give yourself the option of going to the gym after work or jogging before work, you might choose the second option, but without knowing why. Just knowing that fact helps us persist longer when there’s adversity or hardship. However, if I choose something, I learn about my preferences.
It sounds counterintuitive because we assume that the option of doing nothing reduces persistence. ( Click here to tweet this thought.)Īlter your decision-making technique Research conducted by Wharton and Georgia State University professors shows that we can induce desirable outcomes by simply altering our decision-making technique.īehavioral scientist and lead researcher Rom Schrift explains that it can be useful to allow ourselves the luxury of a “do-nothing” alternative, because it teaches us something about our preferences and motivates us to see goals through to the end. Being productive when your to-do list is endless often means making difficult choices about what comes first, and “nothing” rarely gets a place on that priority list.īut though it might seem counterproductive, behavioral scientists believe that introducing the option of doing nothing into a set of choices helps you get more done.
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