I’m currently reading a book called ‘Die Kunst des klugen Handelns’, which contains 52 short stories with descriptions and explanations of common fallacies and illusions that we encounter on a daily basis. One of the stories I’ve read today was about the Zeigarnik effect (after the soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik).

The story was about how Zeigarnik went to a restaurant with a lot of people and the waiter took all the orders by memorizing them. He actually managed to get every order correct and everyone seemed impressed about it. Later, when they left the restaurant, Zeigarnik realized she forgot her scarf at the restaurant. She went back there and asked the waiter if he could have a look at the table she was sitting, if the scarf was still there. The waiter replied by saying he neither remembers which table she sat her, nor recognizes her. Zeigarnik was confused as the waiter got such a large order correct, but could not remember her being a customer just a few minutes ago. He replied by stating that he remembers the orders only until the customers pay their bill, then he removes them from his memory to make space for other orders.

Zeigarnik and her team then studied this phenomenon and later published a paper about it. They concluded that unfinished or interrupted tasks can be recalled better than task that have already been finished. Thus the waiter could easily remember all the orders until they have been payed. Afterwards the orders are tagged as finished and the waiter’s brain throws the information out.

After reading this, I immediately had to think about negative thoughts and feelings that we try to ignore. They always creep back into our minds at some point and we always seem to be wondering why this happens. The Zeigarnik effect seems to play a role here too. Unfinished business, even if it is in our mind, will resurface again. I think this might also explain why some things come up again in our mind, even if we think we already got over it. Apparently our mind thinks differently.

I guess we need to tackle all the unfinished business in our heads, otherwise the Zeigarnik effect will come back to bite us in the ass.

Ash