Have you ever found yourself having intrusive thoughts about something you haven’t finished? Maybe a half-done work project is keeping you up at night or the suspenseful plot of a novel you’re reading keeps circling your thoughts. There is a reason why it’s so hard to stop thinking about uncompleted and interrupted tasks, and psychologists called it the Zeigarnik effect.
In this article, we’ll go over a simple explanation of the Zeigarnik effect in psychology and why you tend to better remember unfinished tasks than completed ones.
The Zeigarnik Effect
The Zeigarnik effect is something you probably experience more often than you realize. When you start working on a task but do not complete it, thoughts of the unfinished work will probably continue to pop into your mind even when you’ve moved on to other things. These thoughts urge you to go back and finish the task you started. The effect is also why you keep thinking about a page-turner novel you’re halfway through or a video game you haven’t yet beat.
In your day-to-day life, you have multiple tasks that command your attention. But you may find that these things you’ve left unfinished tend to creep into your mind even when you’ve started working on something else.
Soap operas and serialized dramas also take advantage of the Zeigarnik effect. For example, an episode may end, but the story is clearly not over. These “cliffhangers” leave viewers eager to see what happens next, and thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, they will be motivated to come back and watch the next episode to find out.
It’s also common to experience the Zeigarnik effect in school. Before an exam, you probably were able to remember quite a bit of the material you’d just been studying After an exam, however, you probably would have had a much harder time remembering all of the things that you’d studied. Since you no longer have immediate use for it, the information may feel like it got flushed out of your memory.
Zeigarnik Effect Examples
You probably experience the Zeigarnik effect often in your daily life. For example:
- You went grocery shopping and took your kids to school, but you can’t stop thinking about the laundry you didn’t finish folding.
- You replied to a bunch of emails but didn’t get to them all before the end of the workday on Friday. You think about the ones you have left all weekend.
- You tune in to the season finale of your favorite TV show and it leaves with a major cliffhanger. You’re still thinking about what happened weeks later.
- You have a notification that you haven’t checked, and even though you have to work, you’re distracted by the unread text.
- You fill out a job application and get a message saying your profile is only 75% complete. You don’t feel like you can move on to another task until you finish setting it up (100%).
History of the Zeigarnik Effect
The Ziegarnik effect was first observed and described by a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik, a student of influential theorist Kurt Lewin. While sitting in a busy restaurant in Vienna, Ziegarnik noted that the waiters had better memories of unpaid orders. Once the bill was paid, however, the waiters had trouble remembering the exact details of the orders.
Zeigarnik’s Research
In a series of experiments, participants were asked to complete simple tasks such as placing beads on a string, putting together puzzles, or solving math problems.1 Half of the participants were interrupted partway through doing these tasks.
After an hour-long wait, Zeigarnik asked the participants to describe what they had been working on. She discovered that the people who had been interrupted in their work were twice as likely to remember what they had been doing as the people who had been able to complete the tasks.
In another version of the experiment, Zeigarnik found that adults were able to remember the unfinished tasks 90% more often than they could finish tasks. Zeigarnik’s initial studies were described in a paper titled “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks” that was published in 1927.1
Further Research Exploring the Effect
In the 1960s, memory researcher John Baddeley further explored Zeigarnik’s findings in an experiment.2 Participants were given a limited time to solve a set of anagrams. If they could not solve the anagram before the time was up, they were given the word answer.
Later, when the participants were asked to recall the anagrams, they were better able to remember the words that they had not solved than the ones they had. The findings supported Zeigarnik’s observations that people have a better memory for unfinished tasks or interrupted information.
Conflicting Research
Not all research has found support for the effect, however. Some studies have failed to show the same effect and other researchers have found that there are a variety of factors that can influence the strength of the effect.3 For example, studies have shown that motivation can play a major role in how well people remember information.4
How Does It Work?
Short-term memory is limited in both capacity and duration. Typically, we can only retain so many things in our memory. Even then, we need to keep rehearsing information to hold on to it. This process requires quite a bit of mental effort. The harder you try to keep it in your memory for the short term, the harder you’ll have to work to get it to stay put.
Waiters, for example, have to remember a lot of details about the people at the tables they are serving. Information about what food and drinks patrons order needs to stay in their memory until the customers have finished their meals.
To deal with data overload, people often rely on mental tricks that help them remember a great deal of information. The Zeigarnik effect is one example. We hold on to information in the short term by constantly pulling it back into our awareness. By thinking of uncompleted tasks often, we’re more likely to keep remembering them until they get done.
The Zeigarnik effect does not just affect memory in the short term. Unfinished tasks, such as goals that we still want to reach, can also continue to intrude into our thoughts over longer stretches of time. For example, if you have not finished college, your unfinished degree may loom large in your memory for years.
The Zeigarnik effect tells us a lot about how memory works. Once information is perceived, it is often stored in sensory memory for a brief time. When we pay attention to information, it moves into short-term memory. Many short-term memories are quickly forgotten, but through the process of active rehearsal, some information can move into long-term memory.
Zeigarnik suggested that failing to complete a task creates underlying cognitive tension.1 This makes more mental effort and rehearsal necessary to keep the task at the forefront of our awareness. Once it’s done, however, our mind can let go of the extra effort.
How to Make the Zeigarnik Effect Work for You
More than just being an interesting observation about how the human brain works, you can use the Zeigarnik effect to your advantage. There are some real-world applications of the Zeigarnik effect that you can use today.
Common sense might tell you that finishing a task before you stop is the best way to approach a goal. However, the Zeigarnik effect suggests that being interrupted during a task may be an effective strategy for improving your ability to remember information.
Get More Out of Your Study Sessions
If you are studying for an exam, break up your study sessions rather than cramming the night before the test. By studying the information that you need to learn in increments, you will be more likely to remember it until test day.
If you are struggling to memorize something important, momentary interruptions might work to your advantage. Rather than simply repeating the information, review it a few times, and then take a break. While you are focusing on other things, you will find yourself mentally returning to the information that you were studying.
Overcome Procrastination
Procrastination is related to the Zeigarnik in some familiar ways. We often put off tasks until the last moment, only to finish them in a frenzied rush at the last possible moment to meet a deadline. Unfortunately, this habit leads to stress and poor performance.
One way to overcome procrastination is to put the Zeigarnik effect to work for you. Start by taking the first step, no matter how small. Once you’ve started—but not finished—your work, you will find yourself thinking about the task until you complete it. You may not finish it all at once, but each small step you take puts you closer to your goal.
This approach can motivate you to finish and lead to a sense of accomplishment once you finally complete a task and can put your mental energies elsewhere.
Generate Interest and Attention
Advertisers and marketers use the Zeigarnik effect to encourage consumers to buy their products. Creatives like filmmakers and TV writers also use the effect. For example, think about how movie trailers are designed to attract your attention by teasing you with some, but not all, info about the plot and characters. The trailer draws your attention but leaves you wanting more. To find out what happens, you’ll have to see the movie.
TV episodes often end with a moment of high action, a cliffhanger moment, which leaves the fate of characters or the outcome of the situation unresolved. To relieve the tension created by cliffhanger endings, viewers have to remember to watch the next episode when it comes out.
Promote Mental Well-Being
The Zeigarnik effect is not always beneficial. When you do not complete tasks, they may weigh heavily on your mind and create stress. The stressful, invasive thoughts can lead to anxiety and affect your sleep.5
That said, the Zeigarnik effect has a way of getting you to resolve the stress. The repeated thoughts you’re having will motivate you to finish what you’ve started, and this can relieve stress and improve your self-esteem, and self-confidence.
Summary
The Zeigarnik effect started with a simple observation of how restaurant waiters manage to remember many customer orders. Since then, research has shown that we tend to better recall unfinished tasks than completed ones. While many factors can influence the Zeigarnik effect and its strength, you can often use it to your advantage. For example, by taking deliberate breaks while studying, you may find that you can better remember important details you’ll need for a test.