Watching the replay of your favorite TV show strengthens your will power
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Many people tie the TV to the sofa, which promises a lot of adverse effects to a person, from the deterioration of vision to hypertension due to a sedentary lifestyle. Because we are always taught - watch less TV, get up off the couch and move.
However, it turns out that the TV brings health not only harm. The study, conducted under the guidance of Professor Jay Derrick of Buffalo, showed that watching the replay of a favorite TV show helps a person restore his moral strength, improves his willpower and self-control.
"A person's reserves of moral strength are limited. When a person performs a certain task, he spends a certain proportion of these mental resources on him. Therefore, the fulfillment of the next task of moral strength and energy is less, - explains Jay Derrick. "Over time, psychological resources are being restored, but there must be ways to accelerate this process."
One such way is to watch the replay of your favorite TV program, Derrick found with his team. When a person looks at a program he has seen before, he feels comfortable, because he already knows what the show participants will say or do. A person does not experience, does not strain, but simply sits and enjoys.
"When you watch the replay of your favorite show, you usually do not have to make any effort to control yourself, your thoughts, words or actions. You do not spend psychological energy on self-control. At the same time, you enjoy your "interaction" with television characters, and this helps you to restore energy. "
Derrick came to such conclusions thanks to research, the essence of which was the following: the participants in the survey were divided into two groups, half of whom were given a more complex task, requiring concentration of attention, and the other half less complicated. Then half of the participants were given the task to describe their favorite television show on paper, and the other half was asked to write down the items that were in the room (neutral task).
It turned out that those who were offered to describe the TV show were written longer and longer by those who had previously performed a more complex task. Derrick concluded that after carrying out a difficult task, they wanted to think more about their favorite transmission and thus relax and restore the wasted energy.
In the course of another study, the participants conducted personal diaries, recording everything they had to do with the expenditure of moral forces. It turned out that the participants of the study often watched the repetitions of television programs when they were about to perform a complex task that required considerable effort. Thanks to the television show repeats, they restored their psychological energy.
Derrick stressed that only their favorite programs positively influenced the psychological state of people, while viewing random TV material did not produce such an effect. Moreover, even the favorite programs at the first viewing were not as useful as repetitions. Derrick explains this by a special comfortable "relationship" of the viewer with tele-persons, whose words and behavior are already known to him.