In any competition, whether Olympic or not, the rules are always the same; Gold medal for whoever does it better, silver medal for the second best and finally bronze medal for the third best . If we follow a logical reasoning, we should think then that the bronze, silver and gold medalists can feel happy, happier and much more happy respectively, is not it? Well, although it's hard to believe, it's not exactly like that. Actually the winner of the bronze medal is much happier that the winner of the silver medal, so capricious is the human mind! In the following Supercurioso article we explain why.
Bronze medal, golden smile
Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, said:
"You earn the gold, you feel good. you win the bronze, you think: 'Well, at least I have something'. But if you win the silver medal, it's like, "Congratulations! You almost win. Of all the losers, you were the first of the group. You are the number one loser. "
In 1995, the psychologists of Cornell Victoria Medvec and Thomas Gilovich together with the psychologist Scott Madey , from the University of Toledo, they got together to investigate if this statement could be true and if the medalists really felt as described by Jerry Seinfeld. The study conducted by these three psychologists was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and clips of some 40 bronze and silver medal winners from the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona were edited.
These film clips were presented in two versions to some undergraduate students: the first version picked up the immediate reaction that the athlete had before the announcement of the winner immediately after each event. The second version collected the status of the athlete in the ceremony of medals, held several hours later. Then, without revealing which medal had won each one, the undergraduate students were asked to rate the reactions of the different athletes and to rate them from 1 to 10, with 1 being "agony" and 10 "ecstasy".
Once the results were analyzed, it was possible to verify that the medalists who had won the bronze medal seemed to be much happier than the medalists who won the silver medal. The students who participated in the study rated the winners of the bronze with a 7.1 in the immediate moment of announcing the winner and with a 5.7 when they were on the podium. In return, the winners of the silver medals were rated by the students with a 4.8 immediately after the announcement of the winners and only with a 4.3 at the medal award ceremony. This study was repeated with medalists from the 2004 Olympic Games finding very similar results.
The human being always tends to compare
In that first study that was conducted in 1995, the psychologists Medvec, Gilovich and Madey determined that this paradoxical reaction was due to "counterfactual thinking": this thought determines that instead of thinking objectively about the achievement they had achieved, the athletes They compared it to what they could have achieved. That's what he studied revealed, that while for the silver medalist, that counterfactual thought made him think that "he could have won the gold" only that I would have done it a little better, the bronze medalist had a completely opposite feeling, and that was "almost out of the podium" . That's the big difference between the two athletes and why the winner of the bronze medal is happier than the silver medal winner. What we can extract from this study is that there are moments in life when less is really more.
Every day we discover new and amazing things about human thinking and how our environment affects our feelings and our emotions . Some human behaviors are well known and familiar to us, but some, like the one we discussed in this article, never cease to amaze us because of the paradox involved. What's your opinion about it? Have you ever thought about the different reactions of the winners of medals? Have you noticed, as we told you before, that their reactions are different depending on the medal they have won?
Maybe that counterfactual thought that we talked about can be extrapolated to other very different areas. For example, are the immensely rich more happy than those who have only what they need? What do you think? If we applied the counterfactual thought we could say that "it is not happier who else has but who less needs" .
We hope that this article has made you think about all these concepts that we discussed and that, if you feel like it, do not leave any comment with your point of view. Do you dare? We will be happy to read you!