Did you lose your Gold-Star-Sticker? Get yourself a whole packet and write down your accomplishments!

Problem & Research

Between the age of 6 and 10 years old, I had a sticker-journal in which I would keep all the gold stars and “Good Work” stickers that I received at school. Everyday, I would look at the stickers and remember why I had received them, it made me feel amazing! Have you ever wondered why successful people continue to be successful? Or why successful people are constantly full of great ideas?

Zimmerman (2000) found that high achieving students show greater levels of self-efficacy, and as a result they are more likely to achieve their goals. Likewise, Professors Amabile and Kramer from the University of Harvard analysed hundreds of diary entries and found that keeping track of successes enhances creativity, motivation, and productivity (Amabile, & Kramer, 2011). It also lead to greater happiness. That's all very good. In this sense, the high achievers will continue to be high achievers. But what about the person who doesn't have a high level of self-efficacy because they don't have that many big achievements to remember?  Does it mean that you are forever damned to the vicious circle of people who suck? Despair not, because Amabile and Kramer also found that even small wins can significantly boost work life and happiness. Similarly, at school you didn't need to come first to get a gold star. You just needed to do well in something small, like sharing your sandwich with the kid who forgot theirs or tidy up the wellies by the front door. For more information, check out their book - the Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work.

However, during adulthood nobody keeps track of your achievements. Once people achieve their goals, they quickly forget that they did so and stop celebrating their accomplishments. Many university students become so saturated with work and so concerned about getting a job or internship, that they forget the accomplishment of having been accepted to their university. Research shows that reminding people of their achievements and making them feel good about themselves can improve performance (Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, & Harackiewicz, 2008). Likewise, a successful program that improved the academic achievement of students at the University of Michigan (Steele, 1997), did so by recognizing student’s accomplishment of having been admitted to the university.

Purpose

Our aim was to change how students approach their academic life and goals by encouraging greater confidence and self-esteem.

Target audience? & Communication Channel

We selected the entire student population at Warwick as our target audience, specifically we wanted to reach students who were likely to have a lot of work and could be feeling overwhelmed. Research shows that when promoting a message, higher rates of engagement are yielded when the target audience is small and well defined (Maibach et al., 2011). For this reason, we carried out the implementation at Warwick Library on a Sunday. We promoted our message via an offline channel as it provided the most direct exposure of the message to students on campus.

What we did

First we asked the Library staff if we could use a board and position ourselves in public library space to carry out a Psychology project. To convince the library staff we reminded them that Warwick emphasises well-being (https://warwick.ac.uk/services/wellbeing/) and that our activity could benefit students’ productivity.

After the library staff agreed, we put up an Accomplishments Board - a board where we stuck post-its with student’s achievements. We, ourselves, were the first to write our own accomplishments on the board with the intention to encourage participation.

Step 1- We approached students in an enthusiastic and friendly manner and asked them if they were interested in taking part in the accomplishments board.

Step 2-  We outlined the purpose and benefit of the activity.

Step 3- We provided examples of successful and famous individuals who wrote down their achievements every day.

Step 4- We encouraged them to write down simple things and gave them examples of what we wrote and showed them what others had written.

Step 5-  We gave them a ‘well done’ sticker and congratulated them for their achievement.

Step 6- Finally, we encouraged students to write down something they accomplished every day and place it somewhere visible such as a mirror.

PERSUASION TECHNIQUES:

1. Aspirational reference groups: To encourage participation, we provided examples of famous people that use this self-affirmation technique every day like Oprah, Denzel Washington, Jim Carrey, and Jennifer Lopez. People want to be like those they look up to. In 1929, Edward Bernay’s increased female smokers by paying models to smoke in the New York Easter Sunday Parade (Murphree, 2015).

2. Using the word ‘BECAUSE’: When asking students to take part in the accomplishments board, we explained the benefits of writing down accomplishments and made sure to use the word “because”. Langer found people are more likely to comply with a request when given a reason why to comply. Moreover, as illustrated in the Xerox Machine Study, just using the word “because” encourages greater compliance regardless of the reason (Cialdini et al., 2007).

3. Breaking social norms: We, ourselves, first wrote down our own accomplishments on the board to encourage participation. Engaging in public activities can be awkward. However, it only takes a few people, if not one, to break the ice. When students saw how other students had already taken part in the activity, they became more likely to participate.

4. Salience using Color: we made the board salient through 1) writing accomplishments board in big red letters; and 2) writing the accomplishments on colourful post-it notes. According to Eiseman (2000), the psychological effect of colour is instantaneous as it stimulates the senses and increases appeal. The salience of the board was confirmed as students walking by stopped to read the accomplishments.

5. Incentives: To encourage participation, we highlighted the benefits of doing this activity regularly.  Benefits include: creativity, motivation, and productivity (Amabile, & Kramer, 2011), resulting in enhanced performance (Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, & Harackiewicz, 2008).

---- What you can do: Get yourself a sticker-journal ----

After reading Professor Amabile and Kramer’s research on small wins, I was determined to get myself a new sticker-journal. I found the following one on Amazon. It encourages giving yourself a gold star every time you achieve something small, like getting out of bed on time or flossing your teeth. Even if you don’t give yourself a gold star every day (we know the novelty of that would eventually run out), write down your achievements every day for a week and see that happens! You might be surprised by how much a mental gold-star can affect your productivity.

---- How it can be expanded in future projects? ----

Based on the research by Steele at the University of Michigan (Steele, 1997), students should be congratulated on their progress throughout the academic year. At the end of every term, students could receive a “well done” email or even £5 on their EatingatWarwick card. Moreover, the university could have a permanent wall on which students can write their achievements. Reading what your fellow warwick antecedents (people like me) achieved would also serve as a source of inspiration.

References

Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 70-80.

Andsager, J., Bemker, V., Choi, H., & Torwel, V. (2006). Perceived Similarity of Exemplar Traits and Behavior. Communication Research, 33(1), 3-18.

Burger, J. M., Messian, N., Patel, S., del Prado, A., & Anderson, C. (2004). What a coincidence! The effects of incidental similarity on compliance.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(1), 35-43.

Cialdini, R. (2007). Influence (1st ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

Hulleman, C. S., Durik, A. M., Schweigert, S. B., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2008). Task values, achievement goals, and interest: An integrative analysis. Journal of educational psychology, 100(2), 398.

Maibach, E. W., Leiserowitz, A., Roser-Renouf, C., & Mertz, C. K. (2011). Identifying like-minded audiences for global warming public engagement campaigns: An audience segmentation analysis and tool development. PloS one, 6(3), e17571.

Murphree, V. (2015). Edward Bernays's 1929 “Torches of Freedom” March: Myths and Historical Significance. American Journalism, 32(3), 258-281.

Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American psychologist, 52(6), 613.

Weaver, K., Garcia, S., Schwarz, N., & Miller, D. (2007). Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 92(5), 821-833.

Zimmerman, Barry J. "Self-efficacy: An essential motive to learn." Contemporary educational psychology 25.1 (2000): 82-91.

Murphree, V. (2015). Edward Bernays's 1929 “Torches of Freedom” March: Myths and Historical Significance. American Journalism, 32(3), 258-281.