Wanting again on the 1912 Olympics, Abel Kiviat (June 23, 1892 – August 24, 1991) mentioned, “I wake up sometimes and say, ‘What the heck happened to me?’ It’s like a nightmare.”
He misplaced the 1,500 meter race by one-tenth of a second:
Abel Kiviat responded like many silver medal winners.
Silver Medal Winners
Silver medal winners are usually much less blissful than the athletes who received bronze.
In a single paper, psychologists used photographs of 20 silver and 15 bronze 1992 medal winners. Examine individuals then rated the expressions on a 1 to 10, agony to ecstasy scale during which 1 is agony and 10 is ecstasy. The imply for the silver medalists was 4.8 whereas bronze was 7.1. Measured one other time, the silver common was 4.3 and bronze, 5.7.
You’ll be able to see that bronze winners, within the bars on the best, have larger blissful scores:
However greater than a graph, this silver medal successful hockey workforce says all of it.
At Sochi, 2014, the Canadians obtained the gold and the Swiss, the bronze. They have been ecstatic however not the US workforce:
Or gymnast McKayla Maroney had the basic silver medal face in 2012:
Our Backside Line: Reference Factors
As a behavioral economist, let’s imagine that silver and bronze medalists really feel in a different way due to their reference factors. Reference factors come in useful as a instrument for assessing an accomplishment. At work we will likely be sad with a 5% elevate when an affiliate will get 7%. If our inventory portfolio plunges, we don’t really feel so dangerous if the S&P declined much more.
Equally, silver medalists concentrate on the counterfactual that would have been. They assume, “if only…” and “why didn’t I just…” Against this, bronze winners are likely to take delight in having received a medal and topping so many different opponents. The silver medalist focuses “upward” on the gold winner as his or her reference level. In the meantime the bronze thinks “downward” concerning the fourth place (and decrease) she fortunately averted.
As economist John Listing defined, we are able to do “gain framing” or “loss framing.” For people, the ache of loss is extra intense than the enjoyment of acquire. The silver medalists are within the loss group whereas bronze feels the acquire.
My sources and extra: You would possibly get pleasure from (as did I) beginning with a Hidden Mind podcast. From there, the articles about medal winners’ feelings got here from The Washington Put up, NPR, and the College of Iowa. Then, in order for you the tutorial perspective, do have a look right here, right here, and right here. And for essentially the most up-to-date perception, this text from economist John Listing is good. Please additionally word that a few of right now’s sentences have been in a previous econlife publish and the McKayla Maroney picture is from the AP/Julie Jacobson.
The publish The Olympic Medal That Makes Individuals Mad and Unhappy appeared first on Econlife.
