BRONZE MEDALLISTS
There is a fascinating research study done by Vicki Medvec, a professor at Northwestern University. She studied Olympic medallists and she discovered that Bronze medallists were happier than Silver medallists. Here’s why.
Medvec found that Silver medallists tended to focus on how close they came to winning gold so they weren’t satisfied with silver. Bronze medallists tended to focus on how close they came to not winning a medal at all so they were just happy to be on the medal stand at all.
The study reveals a fascinating facet of human nature - your focus determines your reality.
• How we feel isn’t always determined by objective circumstances. If that was the case, Silver medallists would be happier than Bronze medallists because they had an objectively better result.
• A student who scored 350 points out of a total of 400, and tops his neighbourhood school, will feel extremely happy, but another student with the same score in a top school, feels extremely lousy for being the last in his class of top students.