Have you Ever Heard of the Batman Effect?

In a series of self-control experiments for children who are facing boring tasks, the researchers reminded the children, "Think about it, if you were Batman, what would you do?"  The completion of the task would lead to a substantial increase.

This effect is therefore called the Batman effect. Perhaps there are very meaningful applications in the future of children’s education.

Its core principle is to treat oneself as a more ideal image instead of oneself. When we pretend to be Batman, anxiety will be reduced, courage and moral responsibility will be increased.

Rachel White, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State, said: “Self-distancing gives us a little extra space, allowing us to think more rationally about the current situation. It can also help us to control anxiety and other bad emotions, and to enhance perseverance and self-control.”

In the past decade, Ethan Cross, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has led most of the relevant research, and the results show that even small changes in perspective can help us control our emotions.

According to the interview of Beyoncé and Adele, they would hint that they are confident/wild girls, before they stand on stage. When they draw more details of the confident/wild girls in their mind, their behavior will change accordingly. They no longer worry about the upcoming performance because they know they will not fail!

It is exciting that self-distancing is possible to encourage greater feelings of self-efficacy.

In Cross's series of experiments, we found that this approach is also applicable to ordinary people. For example, instead of you, addressing yourself in the third person (such as calling yourself Mr. Hu) can reduce your anxiety.

Different people can also conceive different virtual personalities according to their needs. When you want to perform Michael Jackson’s songs and dances on stage, you can imagine yourself as Jackson; when you are preparing for the final exam, you can imagine that you are a highly disciplined student. In order to deceive your brain, you can even give him a name.

A little imagination will bring us closer to who we want to be.