Being Batman - Your Ticket to the world of Deep Work

"What would Batman do?" This question sounds odd to an average adult, but it actually might be the solution to many of your problems. These problems might include anxiety, anger, fear, overwhelmingness, procrastination, or a lack of motivation and drive. Have you ever seen Batman or Superman showing any of these weaknesses when it came to the most crucial moments in their lives? I bet you didn't, though due to plot reasons, they do have their weak moments; they always come back on track in a very impressive way. What has this to do with your struggles? It is apparently possible to access their superpower attitude and overcome your own challenges much better than without.

So what is the Batman effect?

The Batman effect describes a mental manipulation that facilitates self-distancing. This can help you deal a lot better with your normal day challenges, like huge workloads or tedious tasks. This methodology can free up a lot of mental capacity when applied correctly. It basically works by impersonating someone of your choice who would easily deal with your challenge. This might be a superhero like Batman or Superman (or just your spouse or tennis buddy). The Batman effect was originally described by psychologist Rachel White (Hamilton College, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-white-718a5559/) in 2016. She conducted a study where kids who impersonated a superhero had by far the best work performance in comparison to a control group.

Short summary of the study - Rachel White: The “Batman Effect”: Improving Perseverance in Young Children (2017)

This study looked at the upsides of self-distancing on children’s perseverance. A total number of 180 4- and 6-year-old kids (90 of each) were given a very unattractive task: It was a go/no-go concept.

Task: The kids looked at a screen, and if a cheese was displayed they had to press the space bar on a keyboard; if it was a cat, they did not have to press anything. The very attractive alternative (and it was up to the kids what they wanted to do) was to play a video game on an iPad.

The total time for each participant was 10 minutes.

And now comes the really interesting part of this study: The kids were separated into 3 different groups, each with a different assignment:

• Group 1: Think about your own feelings and thoughts while you are doing this ("Am I working hard?").
• Group 2: Use your own name (in this example, Peter) to ask, “Is Peter working hard?”
• Group 3: Impersonate Batman (or Dora the Explorer or some other hero) and ask, “Is Batman working hard?”

They looked at the time the kids actually worked on the task, and the results were quite interesting: Group 3 spent by far the most time working on the task. So, the conclusion here: The more mental separation, the more self-control, and the more time was spent working on the task.

Why does this actually work?

The effect is based on different principles.

1. Mental separation induced by impersonating Batman diminishes or even eliminates all feelings of (threatening) urgencies. This clears up your mind so you can focus on the long-term goal. As a side effect, it makes you a lot less susceptible to distractions. It also enables you to step outside your personal experience, putting you in the fortunate situation of having a bird’s-eye view of your tasks. This bigger picture evaluation:And all the above-mentioned points enable you to make a conscious decision for the relevant task and against the irrelevant, but attractive alternative.
   • Makes your choices clearer
   • Gives you a deeper and better reflection on your choices
   • Grants greater control over your actions
   • Makes it a lot easier for you to deal with negative emotions (like boredom or frustration)
2. Identifying with Batman comes (at least mentally) with the same powerful features that you admire so much.
3. It might be obvious, but in our grown-up world, it needs to be mentioned: It's just so much more fun to be Batman when you are working on a (boring) task. And yes, the simple fact that it's more fun makes you work harder, better, and can get you into a state of flow.

How to enhance this effect?

You think it's weird to pretend you're Batman when you work on a task, and you're afraid your colleagues might find out about it and report you to your boss? Wait for the next one! You can use self-talk to enhance the effect. You might actually use it automatically when you're prompting yourself verbally to be Batman (more on this later): “What would Batman do (in this situation)?”. A similar approach is the use of mantras that you think out loud like “I'm laser-focused and nothing can distract me because I am Batman”. There's more scientific evidence about this: Sando Dolcos's publication from 2014 indicates that second-person self-talk strengthens performance and the behavioral intentions in solving a specific task (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2048).

Another very effective method is physical reminders like post-it notes (“Batman”) or images. If all these prompts are not working for you, you can try another non-linguistic approach: Watch yourself on a video or in a mirror, telling yourself “How hard Batman is working”. I know, any of these enhancers are a lot easier to conduct in a home office setting, but it's up to you to show some dedication.

Suggestions for real world implementations

Start thinking about in what area of your life/work environment you are under the influence of a lot of distractions. Or where or when you're really procrastinating or are anxious about something. Or even better: In what situation do you want to improve your already great performance? Find a situation! Then think about a person (fictional or real) who would excel without any problems in this situation. This is your exemplar, and now you start the mental manipulation.

Design a prompt:

I would suggest starting with an easy prompt like “What would [xyz] think/do?”. The prompt can be more complex and include a distinguished situation, but you should not make it too complicated because your mind still needs to be able to follow along relatively intuitively. Use ChatGPT or any other LLM to get some help or inspiration for an effective prompt if you find it hard to think of any. Just make sure your prompting of ChatGPT is good enough (to stay in the picture).

Try this one:

I'm struggling with [anxiety, procrastination, etc.] [doing xyz], and I'm seeking a self-distancing prompt to help overcome this challenge. I plan to use the strategy of impersonating someone who excels in this type of task. Could you suggest a suitable person for me to emulate and provide a prompt (max. 8 words) that will remind me that I am impersonating them (give me the perspective of an observer)?

Find some way to use self-talk and/or mantras to support your mental manipulation. You cannot feel the ideas coming: use ChatGPT to get some inspiration. Physical reminders can also be a mighty tool to achieve sustainable results.

So, to put it in different words: What you are actually doing is crafting an alter ego that helps you move out of your comfort zone. While Rachel White's study focused on executive function, this alter ego can help you with much more. It can assist you in muting the little voice in your head that constantly asks, 'How will people react?' Being Batman, you just won't care if Jerry from high school thinks it’s hilarious that you started a newsletter about the rainforest. You can do things simply because you like the idea, armed with your partner in crime: your alter ego. Whenever you face an obstacle, ask yourself what your alter ego would do and follow that path. Jenna Vieira recently published a study that found evidence that self-distancing decreases anxiety and the tendency to catastrophize, while still allowing you to reflect on a feared situation and sort it out. This, in my opinion, is excellent news.

And of course, it's entirely up to you how many alter egos you want to adopt, as having only one might not do justice to the complexity of your life.

Batman Effect: A Possible Game Changer for Your Productivity

In my opinion, this technique is an intriguing way to enhance your performance through mental manipulation. This is particularly true because it's such a real-life scenario: we are all bombarded with distractions at work and in our private lives. Using this method for self-distancing could provide an escape from distractions and pave the way to deep work, leading to more and better results than ever before.

Sources:

White RE, Prager EO, Schaefer C, Kross E, Duckworth AL, Carlson SM. The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children. Child Dev. 2017 Sep;88(5):1563-1571. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12695. Epub 2016 Dec 16. PMID: 27982409.

White RE, Carlson SM. What would Batman do? Self-distancing improves executive function in young children. Dev Sci. 2016 May;19(3):419-26. doi: 10.1111/desc.12314. Epub 2015 May 21. PMID: 25997842.

Vieira JL, Malivoire BL, Koerner N, Sumantry D. An examination of worry and self-distancing as coping strategies for anxiety-provoking experiences in individuals high in worry. Anxiety Stress Coping. 2023 Oct 24:1-14. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2023.2270417. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37873941.

https://medium.com/an-idea/the-batman-effect-creating-an-alternate-you-ef52e2458314 (access 03-19-24)

Abdaal A. Feel-good productivity: how to do more of what matters of you. First U.S. edition. New York: Celadon Books; 2023.

Dolcos S, Albarracin D. The inner speech of behavioral regulation: Intentions and task performance strengthen when you talk to yourself as a You. Euro J Social Psych. 2014 Oct;44(6):636–42.