"Why We're Addicted to New Year's Hope...and How to Make the Most of It"by Kelly McGonigal, PhD
“Do you think you are smarter, nicer, or funnier than most people you know? Most people answer yes, a quirk psychologists call the "better-than-average" effect. Although it's statistically impossible, everyone likes to think of themselves as at least one standard deviation above the norm.
Our positive illusions aren't totally self-centered, though. We have the same faith in our sports teams. A recent study from Yale found that football fans always expect their favorite team to win more than 50% of games (a statistic as impossible as the above-average effect). Experience makes no difference. When people's predictions didn't pan out, there was a temporary drop in expectations - followed by an increase in unrealistic optimism. Even when the researchers paid for accuracy, and gave feedback to help the fans make more accurate predictions, people held on to their positive biases. It turns out that hope is worth more than the $50 a week the researchers were offering. The emotional cost of realism was too steep. We'd rather be wrong tomorrow but happy today.
That's where New Year's resolutions come in. Most resolutions fail, but 60% of people make the same resolution the following year. Why are we addicted to resolutions we should know are unlikely to succeed? In my experience helping people make difficult changes, I've come to realize that New Year's Resolutions are an expression of hope. They aren't an action plan for the future; they're an emotional strategy for today. Research shows that setting a resolution immediately puts people in a better mood. They feel more confident, in control, and hopeful. They even feel stronger and taller.
True to the above-average effect, most resolutions are unrealistically optimistic. People expect change to come easier and faster for them than for other people. We also expect to improve more in the future than we have improved in the past. So the last diet didn't work? No matter. Tomorrow is another day. This is another quirk of the human mind: people reliably expect their future selves to have more willpower, motivation, and energy than their present selves. And while this thinking may not be realistic, it isn't entirely foolish. The more optimistic we are about our future selves, the happier we are today.
In fact, the science of happiness shows that anticipating good things - whether it's your team winning the Super Bowl or your New Year's resolution succeeding - is the most reliable source of day-to-day happiness. Not only that, but the more positive we feel about our future selves, the more likely we are to do things to support our future selves' happiness - like save for retirement, exercise regularly, or cut back on salt.
So go ahead and make your resolution, and make it big. Research shows that the average person makes a resolution five or six times before they succeed. Even if you're above average, you'll probably need a few attempts. So savor the joy of resolving to change. It's the best part of a New Year's resolution - and you'll need that hope to try again in 2013.”- http://www.psychologytoday.com/•Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a psychologist at Stanford University and the author of "The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It."
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