Zeigarnik effect
Transclude of zeigarnik-anki
Practical applications
- Putting items on a todo list should thus reduce stress GTD
- Part of gamification: you are 64% done helps to finish or continue the task
- Cliffhangers in tv-series
See also
She was a student under Kurt Levin
The Wikipedia article has several sources for further reading
Scholarship
Named after Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, in psychology the Zeigarnik effect occurs when an activity that has been interrupted may be more readily recalled. It postulates that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. In Gestalt psychology, the Zeigarnik effect has been used to demonstrate the general presence of Gestalt phenomena: not just appearing as perceptual effects, but also present in cognition.The Zeigarnik effect should not be confused with the Ovsiankina effect. Maria Ovsiankina, a colleague of Zeigarnik, investigated the effect of task interruption on the tendency to resume the task at the next opportunity.
AI generated note
The Zeigarnik effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. First observed by Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the 1920s, this effect suggests that the mind creates tension around incomplete tasks, making them more memorable and pressing until they are resolved. It has implications for productivity, motivation, and even everyday experiences like earworms (songs stuck in one’s head) or the tendency to dwell on unresolved issues. The Zeigarnik effect is often leveraged in storytelling, marketing, and habit formation to maintain engagement and encourage task completion.
- People tend to remember unfinished, interrupted or incomplete tasks better than completed tasks
- The Art of Sustainable Performance: The Zeigarnik Effect
- concept
- The Zeigarnik effect states that people tend to remember unfinished or incomplete tasks better than completed tasks