Children concentrate more if they pretend to be Batman

Perhaps it would help if we dress up David Davis and continuously ask him through a loud speaker, "Is Batman working hard ?". Well, it's worth a shot. Nothing else seems to work.

The 180 kids were assigned to one of three conditions: a control group, which asked the children to think about their thoughts and feelings as they went through the task... The second group was asked to think of themselves in the third-person... In the third condition, the kids were asked to think about someone else who is really good at working hard. The kids got to dress up as the character they picked.

For 10 minutes the kids could move between the “work” and iPad. They were reminded every minute, through a loud speaker, of their “condition” (“Is Dora working hard?”). All the kids were told, “This is a very important activity and it would be helpful if you worked hard on this for as long as you could.” Perseverance was measured as time spent on the ‘work’ task.

For 10 minutes the kids could move between the “work” and iPad. They were reminded every minute, through a loud speaker, of their “condition” (“Is Dora working hard?”). All the kids were told, “This is a very important activity and it would be helpful if you worked hard on this for as long as you could.” Perseverance was measured as time spent on the ‘work’ task.

_Not surprisingly to anyone who has kids, and iPads, the kids spent 37% of their time on the ‘work’ task, and 63% on the iPad.

But those kids pretending to be superheroes ‘worked’ more than those who thought of themselves in the third person, and both of those groups did better than the kids who just thought of themselves as ‘me’.

But how much ? Come on people, quantify things ! Do you want to grow up to be like David Davis or Batman ? Your choice.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/new-research-finds-that-kids-aged-4-6-perform-better-during-boring-tasks-when-dressed-as-batman