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Watching reruns of your favorite TV show builds willpower
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Many people are chained to the couch by television, which promises a person many unfavorable consequences, from deteriorating vision to hypertension due to a sedentary lifestyle. That is why we are always taught - watch less television, get off the couch and let's move.
However, it turns out that TV is not only harmful to health. A study conducted under the direction of Professor Jay Derrick from Buffalo showed that watching a rerun of a favorite TV show helps a person restore their moral strength, improves willpower and self-control.
"A person has a limited amount of mental energy. When a person performs a certain task, he spends a certain amount of these mental resources on it. Therefore, there is less mental energy and strength left to perform the next task," explains Jay Derrick. "Over time, psychological resources are restored, but there must be ways to speed up this process."
One such method is watching a rerun of a favorite TV program, Derrick and his team discovered. When a person watches a program that they have seen before, they feel comfortable because they already know what the participants will say or do. They don’t worry or stress, they just sit back and enjoy it.
"When you watch a rerun of your favorite show, you usually don't have to make any effort to control yourself, your thoughts, words or actions. You don't spend psychological energy on self-control. At the same time, you enjoy your "interaction" with the TV characters, and this helps you restore energy."
Derrick came to these conclusions thanks to a study, the essence of which was as follows: the participants of the study were divided into two groups, half of which were given a more difficult task that required concentration, and the other half - a less difficult one. Then half of the participants were asked to write down their favorite TV show on paper, and the other half were asked to write down objects that were in the room (neutral task).
It turned out that of the participants who were asked to describe a TV show, those who had previously completed a more difficult task wrote longer and more. Derrick concluded that after completing a difficult task, they wanted to think more about their favorite show and thus relax and restore the energy they had spent.
In another study, participants kept personal diaries, recording everything they had to do that required mental energy. It turned out that the participants were more likely to watch reruns of TV programs when they had to perform a difficult task that required a lot of effort. Thanks to the reruns of TV shows, they restored their psychological energy.
Derrick emphasized that only people's favorite shows had a positive effect on their psychological state, while watching random TV material did not produce such an effect. Moreover, even favorite shows were not as useful when viewed for the first time as reruns. Derrick explains this by the special comfortable "relationship" of the viewer with TV characters, whose words and behavior are already familiar to him.