The New IQ: Use Your Working Memory to Think Stronger, Smarter, Faster. Tracy AllowayЧитать онлайн книгу.
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2. Have a Few Cups
In 2012, Lars Kuchinke and colleagues from Ruhr University, Germany, discovered that drinking 200 mg of caffeine, or about two to three cups of coffee or four cups of tea, improves how fast and how accurately you can recognize positive words, but not neutral or negative ones. While this study didn’t examine if coffee drinkers are less likely to be depressed, one can point out that if coffee makes it easier to recognize the positive, it’s a good thing.
3. Filter Out the Negative
When we ruminate, we can focus on negative experiences and emotions. This exercise trains your working memory to filter out negative feelings and focus on the positive ones.
Level 1: Instructions
1 Draw a line to connect the positive words and ignore the other ones.
2 Turn the page over and on a separate sheet of paper list all the positive words you’ve just connected.
Level 2: Instructions
1 Draw a line to connect the positive words and ignore the other ones.
2 Turn the page over and on a separate sheet of paper list all the positive words you just connected.
4. Prioritize Your Choices
This exercise helps you to relieve the stress you feel when you are overwhelmed with too many choices by helping you to prioritize what’s most important.
1. Make a list of everything you do in an average day that places demands on your working memory—for example, checking Facebook, checking email on your phone, making breakfast. Your list may have thirty or more items on it.
2. Choose the tasks on the list that are the least important, and don’t do them for a week. You might put your iPad in a closet, limit your time on the Web when you’re working on your computer, or turn off your Twitter feed.
3. At the end of the week ask yourself the following questions:
Do I feel less stressed?
Do I feel more productive?
Was I able to focus more effectively on a task that I accomplished?
4. If you answered yes to all of these, seriously consider restricting the tasks in order to experience less stress. You may want to try and take out more tasks.
Failures, Bad Habits, and Missteps
WHEN YOU SEE wealthy athletes blow through millions of dollars and end up bankrupt, celebrities who seem to have it all throw everything away on a drug habit, or obese individuals continue to overeat in spite of having heart disease and diabetes, it’s natural to wonder why they can’t regulate their behavior. After years of research, we have found that out-of-control behavior is closely linked to working memory problems. In this chapter, we show you what happens when the working memory Conductor loses control.
When Good Fortune Goes Bad
In this down economy, who hasn’t fantasized about winning the lottery? We certainly have. But should we beware of what we wish for? As you’ve probably heard, many people who win the lottery report later that they are no happier, and many ultimately find the large sums of money a burden rather than a blessing. This seems terribly ironic, but we think it may be related to interference with working memory and in a way that illuminates the role of working memory in impulsive behavior.
Take the case of Andrew Jackson “Jack” Whittaker whose $1 lottery ticket purchased at a gas station turned him into the biggest single U.S. lottery winner at the time: $314 million, which translated to a onetime payout of $113 million after taxes. If any lottery hopeful could handle a big win, you would think it would be Whittaker. He was already successful when he won. He had a net worth in the millions and was the president of a West Virginia–based contracting firm with more than one hundred employees.
In the flush of excitement, Whittaker pledged a portion of his winning to various organizations and set up a nonprofit organization to support low-income families. But it didn’t take long before careful planning gave way to unbridled extravagance. The man who had made his millions with hard work and self-control was now thrust into a world in which he had so much money that he seems to have lost sight of its value and of his control in spending it.
In the first year, he had already spent $45 million. His personal plan of spending time with his wife of over forty years and adoring granddaughter never came to fruition. Instead, the Washington Post quoted him as saying, “If they want quality time with me, they have to get up earlier or go to bed a lot later.” Between the trips to the racetrack and slot machines and buying property for development, it was no wonder he had less, not more, family time. And of course, Whittaker lived up to the stereotype of lottery winners by buying numerous cars and houses for himself, family members, and acquaintances. Five years after his win, he claimed that thieves had stolen a lot of money from him and that he was broke. He also had been charged with assault and drunk driving.
Although Whittaker’s tale is not unique when it comes to big-ticket lottery winners, it is uncommon that such a tale begins with someone who was already wealthy. The reason this is relevant here is that Whittaker’s case provokes the question: Why wasn’t someone with experience in managing large amounts of money better prepared to manage his winnings better than most other winners? What turned him into such an impulsive spender?
Wilhelm Hofmann, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’s Center for Decision Research, offers clues to the answer. He has spent several years researching decision making, impulsivity, and working memory. In a 2009 paper, he theorized a model of two significant influences in decision making—an impulsive system and a reflective system:
Impulsive system: This system is automatic, unconsidered, and hedonistic, and it encourages us to do whatever feels good.
Reflective system: This system is rational and involves strategic planning to achieve goals, deliberate judgment, and exercise of control. Hofmann directly links the strength of the reflective system with working memory.
Imagine that you’re stranded alone on a life raft at sea, and you’ve rationed your supplies to give yourself the best chance of survival. Among other items, you’ve got a few chocolate bars,