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Medical Video: How to Get People to Work Harder - The Office US
Next time you get caught red-handed by the big boss watching funny cat videos on YouTube even though there is a lot of work, now you can fend off the accusation of being "lazy" with strong reasons supported by science.
New research has shown that looking at cute baby animal pictures or videos can really increase the effectiveness and speed of your work performance, sharpness of focus, and more careful behavior. What is the reason?
Watching funny cat videos improves work concentration and performance
Seeing a baby's face is known as a trigger for caring and caring for humans, and even some studies have suggested that funny images can release human friendly qualities. In a recent study published in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers showed that these impulses could be transferred to other situations outside of babysitting and other social situations for tasks that require narrow focus and high concentration.
The research team from Hiroshima University led by Hiroshi Nittono divided 48 male and female students into three separate visual experiments: engaging in surgical surgery games aimed at saving the "patient" (in order to measure motor dexterity), to search for two-digit numbers in a series of random number lines (measuring visual dexterity), and measuring focus and attention by arranging letters and numbers. Each group was asked to see funny cat video images, see pictures of adult animals, and the rest looked at neutral images (like food).
The group of students who saw cute baby animal videos showed better job performance to beat other colleagues who only watched adult animals or food. The difference in the quality of work performance is even known very far with a significant difference in margins.
The scientists concluded that images of baby animals made the study participants more focused and more careful because they were stimulated by positive emotions from feeling anxious about seeing something cute.
Another benefit of watching funny cat videos
Funny cartoon characters, such as Hello Kitty or Pikachu, according to the research team triggered a number of positive feelings because these cute characters resemble the characteristics of babies with large, sparkling eyes and large heads.
"Funny creatures such as kittens and puppies not only make the study participants more friendly and friendly, but also create a tendency to be extra careful," the researchers said in a report, quoted from Everyday Health, "And if viewing funny cat videos makes the audience more focused, performance on non-motorized perception tasks will increase too."
There are several theories behind this finding. One reason is that adult humans often unconsciously show positive emotions and slow down their speech when talking to kittens or puppies, and Japanese researchers speculate that seeing funny images might have the same effect - slowing down the behavior of students watching funny cat videos so that accuracy increases they are in the test.
Other reasons may be more related to the parent instinct - the instinct of protecting and caring - something that might benefit performance in care-related tasks that involve helping someone (even if the "person" is just a patient from a plastic board game).
"This study shows that looking at funny and adorable things improves subsequent performance in tasks that require behavioral accuracy, perhaps by narrowing the extent of focus of attention," said Hiroshi Nittono, study lead author, reported by Live Science.
Not only watching funny cat videos, other funny videos can also
Previous studies have shown that break for a moment from work, whatever the form, for example browsing pictures of cute dogs on instagram, watching funny cat videos on youtube, or parodies of hits music videos can keep you more focused throughout the working day.
"Web browsing can really refresh tired workers and increase their productivity, compared to doing other activities such as calling loved ones, replying to chat or emailing friends, especially working continuously without any rest at all," reported from The Huffington Post.
This idea was supported by a 2009 study from the University of Melbourne which concluded that short and unobtrusive breaks made workers more productive than colleagues who refused to give in to the temptation of funny cat videos for only 30 seconds.
