style="font-size:15px;"> The physicality of the experience was an essential component of this game’s design, for two reasons. First, the researchers wanted to give participants the chance to learn a new and unfamiliar skill. By following the instructions and successfully learning how to control the simulator, players would experience a burst of self-efficacy. Second, the researchers wanted to evoke classic mental associations with superhero characters. The ability to fly through the air using only your own power evokes, for most people, the idea of a benevolent superhero like Superman. The researchers’ hypothesis was that by having a firsthand experience of effectively developing a superpower usually associated with superheroes, participants would be more likely to behave heroically toward others in everyday life.
To test this hypothesis, another set of participants were invited to play the same game, but with a different set of rules. They were told that this game would take them on a helicopter ride through the city. Instead of directly controlling their own flight, they passively experienced a tour of the same streets. Like the other participants, however, they were instructed to look for a crying child, so they could land the helicopter and deliver life-saving medicine.
All participants were allowed to keep playing until they successfully completed their rescue mission. Then—and here comes the clever part of the experiment’s design—the researchers staged a fake accident, which happened after the participants had finished playing the game but before they left the lab. Would they notice a person in need—a young woman who suffered a spill—and would they come to her rescue?
It turned out that participants who controlled their own flight in the simulator jumped up to help three times faster, and helped for twice as long, as participants who simply wore the same virtual reality headset and enjoyed a passive helicopter ride through the city landscape. In fact, every single person who learned how to fly helped the struggling person, whereas a full 20 percent of the helicopter passengers completely ignored her.
The important take-away from this study is that players who had direct control over their rescue mission were significantly more inspired to help others. Even though all the participants received the same prosocial “help others” messaging, self-efficacy was ultimately a much more powerful boost of altruistic behavior.
This finding was confirmed in another twist of science, when the Stanford researchers invited yet another group of participants to use the flight simulator without a rescue mission. This group of players learned how to “fly” but were not asked to find a crying child or deliver life-saving medication. This nonrescue group, despite not receiving any “help others” messaging, also was quicker to jump to the rescue and spent more time helping than were the helicopter passengers with a rescue mission. The direct experience of a superpower was enough to change their real-life behavior, even without the subconscious priming of a fictional rescue mission.
The superhero story, it turns out, doesn’t matter as much as the super-empowering experience of having full control over a successful outcome. If you want to tap into your own heroic nature, give yourself the chance to master new skills and experience success—whether it’s in a game or a sport, in the kitchen or the garage. Whenever you feel strong and capable, you’re more likely to use those strengths and capabilities to help others.
Superpower simulators aren’t the only gameful way to unleash your heroic altruism. Here’s a quest inspired by one of my favorite scientific papers from the past decade, written by researchers at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and New York University’s Stern School of Business, and conducted with Princeton University psychologists. The paper, titled “From Student to Superhero,” documents a simple psychological trick you can use anytime, anywhere, to increase your own real-life heroic behavior.
QUEST 13: The Superhero Mirror
Your quest instructions come straight from a psychology lab at Princeton University:
“For this task we would like you to describe the characteristics of a superhero. Think of a superhero, and list the behaviors, values, lifestyle, and appearance associated with these characters.”25
Go ahead and do this now.
What to do: Take at least two full minutes to list everything you can think of that describes a generic superhero: what motivates them, how they treat others, what they do in the face of danger—you get the idea.
You don’t need to be a comic book genius to complete this quest, just do your best! And remember, don’t describe any superhero in particular. Instead, try to list characteristics that describe many, if not most, superheroes.
For the biggest impact, don’t just think of your answer. Write it down, or record it into your phone. At the very least, talk out loud to yourself—it will help you focus and fully lock in the benefits of this quest.
Why it works: Just thinking about what it takes to be a superhero makes you more likely to act like one in the future. You’re more likely to volunteer to help others and donate your time to a worthy cause.
Here’s the data on this quest: the MIT and NYU researchers found that study participants who completed the same quest you just completed were far more altruistic afterward. When asked to sign up to tutor local at-risk youth, twice as many participants who thought about superheroes volunteered as participants who did not think about superheroes (51 percent compared with 24 percent). Among those who volunteered, the superhero group volunteered twice as many hours (an hour a week versus half an hour a week, on average). Most surprisingly, a full three months later, the superhero participants were four times as likely to actually show up for a volunteering session.
How could just a couple minutes’ worth of reflection trigger significant behavior change over a three-month period? Well, psychologists know from numerous studies that when we’re asked to think about the positive traits of a particular social group (such as the selfless, fearless behavior of superheroes), we invariably compare ourselves to the admirable group—and we usually start by looking for similarities. We subconsciously measure ourselves against their values and virtues—and because almost everyone wants to live up to highly admired social standards, we naturally look for ways to fit the bill. It’s like holding up a mirror that reflects back only the best parts.
It’s a bit of a “positive bias”—we all want to think that we’re amazing, wonderful people, even if we’re not. But it’s still a neat and useful psychological trick. Take advantage of your own bias by spending a few minutes thinking about the values and virtues of a group of people you admire—whether they’re professional athletes, firefighters, emergency room nurses, teachers, activists, CEOs, or artists. Every time you do just that, you become twice as likely to jump at the chance to be like these heroes when the opportunity arises.
One important caveat: This quest seems to work only when you think about an entire group of heroes, not one in particular. If you single out one particularly amazing person, you are more likely to compare yourself unfavorably with his or her virtues or achievements. That’s because, psychologists have found, we tend to look for similarities between ourselves and admirable groups, but we tend to notice differences between ourselves and admirable individuals. Thinking about these differences can actually decrease your motivation and self-efficacy! So be sure to focus on general qualities of groups you admire and not on individual heroes.
Tip: To really benefit from this quest, you should look for an opportunity right now to be more like your heroes (or superheroes, whoever inspires you most!). If you make a mental commitment to do something concrete
