Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
by Adam L. Alter · 15 Feb 2017 · 331pp · 96,989 words
’s better to hear no story at all than to hear all but the story’s final beat. — Forty years earlier, a Lithuanian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik stumbled on the power of cliffhangers. She was sipping coffee at a small café in Vienna when she noticed that her waiter remembered his customers
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a rocket ship, hover for a time above the launch pad, and ultimately close the melodic loop by returning to Earth. In the world of Bluma Zeigarnik’s waiter, these tracks are fulfilled orders: they’re satisfying, but your mind leaves them behind when they end, and another song begins. Not so
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? Binge-watching provides a show without much plot all the necessary momentum. By the time you stop hurtling forward, you’ve already seen it all. — Bluma Zeigarnik, the psychologist we met earlier in this chapter, lived a long and remarkable life littered with cliffhangers. In 1940, her husband Albert was sentenced to
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the Internet Movie Database: www.imdb.com/title/tt0064505/reviews. Forty years earlier: Background material on Bluma Zeigarnik and her eponymous effect: A. V. Zeigarnik, “Bluma Zeigarnik: A Memoir,” Gestalt Theory 29, no. 3 (December 8, 2007): 256–68; Bluma Zeigarnik, “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks,” in A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology, W. D. Ellis
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
by Adam Grant · 2 Feb 2016 · 410pp · 101,260 words
.” By delaying the task of fleshing out and firming up the speech, King allowed Jones to benefit from the Zeigarnik effect. In 1927, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik demonstrated that people have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it
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.com/articles/SB10001424127887324399404578583991319014114; Ronald C. White, Jr., The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (New York: Random House, 2011). the Zeigarnik effect: Bluma Zeigarnik, “Das Behalten erledigter und unerledigter Handlungen,” Psychologische Forschung 9 (1927): 1–85; see Kenneth Savitsky, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Thomas Gilovich, “Remembering and Regretting: The
Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction
by Chris Bailey · 31 Jul 2018 · 272pp · 66,985 words
remember what we’re in the middle of more than what we’ve completed. In psychology circles this phenomenon is called the Zeigarnik effect, after Bluma Zeigarnik, the first person to study this concept. The Zeigarnik effect can be annoying when we’re trying to focus, but the opposite is true when
The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time
by Maria Konnikova · 28 Jan 2016 · 384pp · 118,572 words
fall for a con again. There is no better mark, many a con artist will tell you, than one who has already been duped. When Bluma Zeigarnik, a psychologist from the Gestalt school, discovered her eponymous effect—we remember interrupted tasks better than completed ones; our minds haven’t quite given up
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
by Cal Newport · 5 Jan 2016
there’s a good reason for it: the Zeigarnik effect. This effect, which is named for the experimental work of the early-twentieth-century psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, describes the ability of incomplete tasks to dominate our attention. It tells us that if you simply stop whatever you are doing at five p
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tomorrow,” you’ll likely struggle to keep your mind clear of professional issues, as the many obligations left unresolved in your mind will, as in Bluma Zeigarnik’s experiments, keep battling for your attention throughout the evening (a battle that they’ll often win). At first, this challenge might seem unresolvable. As
Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
by Maria Konnikova · 3 Jan 2013 · 317pp · 97,824 words
your time off from a problem, chances are you will return to it both reenergized and ready to expend more effort. In 1927, Gestalt psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik noticed a funny thing: waiters in a Vienna restaurant could remember only orders that were in progress. As soon as the order was sent out
Busy
by Tony Crabbe · 7 Jul 2015 · 254pp · 81,009 words
from creating space and time in our calendars, because things will always fill up that time. 8. Start Quicker In 1927, a Gestalt psychologist called Bluma Zeigarnik was sitting in a Vienna coffeehouse with a group of friends. They ordered a few rounds of drinks, yet the waiter never wrote down their
Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life
by Jim Benson and Tonianne Demaria Barry · 2 Feb 2011 · 147pp · 37,622 words
nearly impossible to understand just how many incomplete tasks remain. Our brains hate this because our brains crave closure. No really, they do! Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik found that the human brain needs closure. This phenomenon—known as the “Zeigarnik Effect”—states that adults have a 90% chance of remembering interrupted and
The Eureka Factor
by John Kounios · 14 Apr 2015 · 262pp · 80,257 words
conscious mind, rather than as a hidden collaborator or servant, provides a plausible basis for theories of incubation. UNFINISHED BUSINESS * * * During the 1920s, Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik traveled from the Soviet Union to Germany to study psychology with the Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin at the University of Berlin. Lewin once recounted an