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How your mindset affects your play!

Solumn·11/1/2014, 10:59:16 AM·4 votes·561 views

In 2009, Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson made a surprising discovery in the science of motivation. She conducted a series of studies where she asked participants to solve a set of puzzles and problems. In one group — the “be-good” group — participants were told that their score reflected their “conceptual and analytical abilities.” They should try to solve as many problems as possible and aim for a high score to demonstrate how good they were. In another group — the “get-better” group — participants were told that each problem was a “training tool” and that they ought to “take advantage of this valuable learning opportunity” to improve their problem-solving skills. [1]

For some participants in each group, Halvorson also increased the difficulty level by introducing a few challenges. She interrupted participants to use up some of their allotted time. She threw in extra, unsolvable problems to frustrate them, without telling participants that the problems were unsolvable.

What surprised Halvorson was how the two groups dealt with the challenges. The ones in the “get-better” group remained unfazed and solved as many as problems in the challenging conditions as the easy ones. They stayed motivated and kept trying to learn. The ones in the “be-good” group, however, were so demoralized when they faced the challenges and obstacles that they solved substantially fewer problems than those who didn’t have to face them.

And those differences happened just because of how the initial goal was framed.

This to me was extremely interesting! I consider myself in the "be-good" group, I think i generally do well and try to carry my team and wonder why I can't seem to carry as hard as people in higher leagues. I'm good am I not? Then why do I have so much bad luck with teams?

This really illustrates just how much your mindset affects your gameplay, before you even enter a match your on tilt when your in this group. Just like within the study there are some problems that you are just not going to be able to "solve". For me this has kind of opened my eyes, you hear people say that you need to improve and that you should play to get better and not worry about a win/loss but seeing an actual study had a much bigger impact on me!

I hope that this will mark an improvement in my gameplay and help me to keep pushing forward and keep trying to improve! I just really wanted to share this because, as I stated before, it really opened my eyes and maybe some of you here on the boards will also find it interesting!

P.S. I know this is from 2009 so sorry if everyone besides myself already knew this!

2 Comments

Trinityunicorn11/1/2014, 11:28:06 PM1 votes

I dreaded speech in college. My first attempt I entered the classroom, the instructor said, you will not get an "A" in this class so don't expect it, there is nearly nothing you can do, it means that you gave a perfect speech and hardly no one does that. I dropped the class. So I put it off took a night class, I entered the room and the instructor said, "the only thing you have to do to pass this class is improve." Finished it with a "B" w/o all the stress that I think I would have felt in the first class, so I can see some of what you are saying. I would suspect that everyone that took the night class did better than if they'd have taken that first class that I dropped.

Solumn11/1/2014, 11:44:38 PM1 votes

Exactly! The high pressure of being told or having the idea that YOU have to do amazingly, get all the answers, and make all the right decisions means you will linger on unsolvable problems, over think simple situations, and generally perform worse at whatever you are trying to do. By simply trying to "get better" instead of trying to "be good" you eliminate a ton of stress and pressure allowing you to function at a much high success rate!