The Zeigarnik effect: the anguish of not being able to finish what you started

The Zeigarnik effect reminds us that the brain does not like to leave things half done or, even more so, to be given ambiguous or imprecise information.. This explains, for example, why it is annoying to interrupt reading a book that interests us. This characteristic would also be behind the anguish experienced when someone leaves us without giving any explanation.

Film and television scriptwriters know this psychological phenomenon very well. Hence, they have been using the well-known effect for decades. cliffhanger to retain your audience. This technique consists, as you know, of placing the maximum tension, impact and emotion possible right at the end of the chapters or film productions.

This abrupt and unexpected conclusion will force the viewer to keep an eye on new installments.. Now, it is clear that we often end up tired of these types of resources because we understand that they are manipulating us. However, on a day-to-day basis it is almost inevitable not to be subject to this interesting and sophisticated mental mechanism.

Cognitive psychology has always been interested in the Zeigarnik effect and those intrusive thoughts that usually visit us when we are pending unfinished tasks or experiences. It’s more, This phenomenon could also explain why we often regret more for what we We did not do that for what we do manage to achieve.

The Zeigarnik effect and an Austrian restaurant

We are in 1920, in a small restaurant in Austria. Over there, sits a young Russian psychologist named Bulma Zeigarnik, somewhat impatient because her teacher, Kurt Lewin, was late.. At a given moment, she stopped looking at the clock and paying attention, like a good scientific observer, to what was happening around her.

He realized something curious. The waiters had an amazing memory for remembering each customer’s orders. It didn’t matter how complex the combination of dishes or types of drinks was. They never failed. However, Bulma could see something even more striking: when customers paid the bill, the waiters instantly forgot each person’s orders.

Nevertheless, Every detail of those others that had not yet been checked out still remained in their brains. That is, unfinished transactions were those pending tasks that the brain could not forget, they were unfinished accounts and therefore impossible to forget.

It didn’t take long for the young Bulma Zeigarnik to return to the University and begin her famous study, which would finally be published in 1927, under the title “On Finished and Unfinished Tasks” (Of finished and unfinished tasks).

The anguish of the unfinished or unrealized

It is often said that what is unfinished or what did not come to be, contains in itself a singular beauty. There is a certain melancholy and sadness in these things, that strange anguish for everything that, due to whatever circumstances, could not be completed or even attempted.

There we have pieces such as Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished” by Franz Schubert, an exquisite piece of music according to experts and which the author himself was forced to leave halfway due to illness. These phenomena, such as feeling bad for not having dared to start a relationship with a person, They are what authors such as Savitsky, Medvec and Gilovich, 1997 describe as “painful omissions.”

This causes, among other things, that We feel upset, angry or disconsolate when people do not answer our questionswhen we are promised things that later are not fulfilled or when emotional relationships end without us being able to identify very well the cause of this abandonment.

The brain does not like ambiguity

Schiffman and Greist-Bousquet (1992) conducted a study at the University of Michigan where they demonstrated another characteristic of the Zeigarnik effect. The brain does not like ambiguity. That is to say, the fact of not being able to finish something is as distressing to us as not understanding it or when ambiguous information suddenly appears or that makes us question everything that came before.

An example. In the history of television, the Lost phenomenon is always brought up. This series broadcast between 2004 and 2010 was for many people an experience of great psychological impact for different reasons, especially the ending. For a good part of the viewers it was too ambiguous and difficult to understand.

In this case the Zeigarnik effect was twofold. Many questions were left unanswered and those offered for many of his followers were not illuminating enough. This has perhaps meant that the trail and impact of this series has had a longer run over time.

In conclusion. There is a fact that is worth reflecting on. Whether we like it or not, our daily reality and the fabric of our own lives are threaded by the Zeigarnik effect.. There will always be aspects that will be left unanswered, that will be ambiguous and even inexplicable, those that will require a personal inference, like when we enter a David Lynch production.

We must therefore be able to tolerate uncertainty and those voids where logic does not exist. Life is not a video game, that world where one can leave in pause a fight and restart it afterwards. Sometimes, There are aspects that cannot be taken up again and that will remain pending forever in the universe of our mind. This is something we must consider.

Be that as it may, it is always interesting to delve deeper into these psychological phenomena to understand the metrics and uniqueness of our wonderful brain.

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