Someone else linked to that somewhere in the comments. The idea is that if you tell all your friends about your high-status plan to write a novel, and they congratulate you, then it becomes a ‘social reality’...you get some of the benefits of having written a novel without having done any work, and so you’re less likely to do the work.
I wonder what would happen if you told your friends about your plans and they were extremely skeptical. From personal experience, I think that to a degree you feel more motivated to ‘show them’ and ‘prove yourself’, as I did when nearly all my friends and family were skeptical that I could learn to sing. I did learn to sing. However, my friends and family were also skeptical that I could become the youngest person to swim across Lake Ontario (at 14) and I didn’t end up doing it...without my parents’ material and financial support, it was pretty much impossible.
Hmmm—just shows that different people are different. I find that if everybody around me is skeptical then I’m far less likely to do it. I’m demotivated because I feel unhappy that they don’t “believe in me”. I prefer my friends to be supportive.
I went through all the comments and tried to find it. I can only conclude that I saw it somewhere else. I’ll keep looking and see if I can find it for you.
Someone else linked to that somewhere in the comments. The idea is that if you tell all your friends about your high-status plan to write a novel, and they congratulate you, then it becomes a ‘social reality’...you get some of the benefits of having written a novel without having done any work, and so you’re less likely to do the work.
I wonder what would happen if you told your friends about your plans and they were extremely skeptical. From personal experience, I think that to a degree you feel more motivated to ‘show them’ and ‘prove yourself’, as I did when nearly all my friends and family were skeptical that I could learn to sing. I did learn to sing. However, my friends and family were also skeptical that I could become the youngest person to swim across Lake Ontario (at 14) and I didn’t end up doing it...without my parents’ material and financial support, it was pretty much impossible.
Hmmm—just shows that different people are different. I find that if everybody around me is skeptical then I’m far less likely to do it. I’m demotivated because I feel unhappy that they don’t “believe in me”. I prefer my friends to be supportive.
Where?
I went through all the comments and tried to find it. I can only conclude that I saw it somewhere else. I’ll keep looking and see if I can find it for you.
This was the original post: Image vs. Impact: Can public commitment be counterproductive for achievement?.
Thanks!