The Illusion of Courage

How many times have you thought about doing something that seemed easy until you actually had to do it? People have been known to walk away, at the last moment, before doing things like bungee jumping, public speaking or even buying a car. Why can some people seem to have all the courage necessary to do something, until they’re actually faced with it?

In an article recently published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, scientists argued that the “illusion of courage” is an example of something called an “empathy gap,” which is a person’s ability to understand how they will behave in future stressful situations.

Researchers conducted a series of three experiments. In the first two experiments they asked college students to participate in an embarrassing situation in the future. In one of the experiments students were asked if they would like to tell a funny story to their class in the future. In the other experiment students were asked if they wanted to dance to James Brown’s “Sex Machine” in front of their class in the future. Prior to giving their responses one group of students was asked to do this without watching short films. Another group of student was asked if they would like to do this after watching short films that caused them to feel fear and anger.

The students who did not see the films drastically miscalculated their true desire to perform in front of their classroom. The students who watched the short films, which made them feel fear and anger, were better able to envision how they would feel about performing in the future.

In the third experiment participants were asked about their desire to engage in a potentially embarrassing performance right before or right after engaging in aerobic exercise. The results of the experiment showed those who had just exercised felt less anxious and more willing to perform than those who had not exercised.

In a January 17, 2012 Press release Leaf Van Boven, who is the associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder responded to the findings of the study.

“We might think that we know ourselves well enough to predict our own behavior in such situations, but predicting our own future behavior isn’t sufficient to overcome the empathy gap – our inability to anticipate the impact of emotional states we aren’t currently experiencing.”

Source

Press Release
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-illusion-of-courage-new-research-explains-why-people-mispredict-their-behavior-in-embarrassing-situations-137476313.html

Article

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.706/full


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