In my last blog entry, Mundane Details, I focused on how
speaking Spanish with my patients has its good and bad days. There are the great days when I am able to
communicate all of my thoughts very clearly and in turn, the patients
understand me. Then there are the bad
days, when my conversations are littered with grammar mistakes and I struggle
to find the right interpretation. I used to think I was the only one who felt
this way, until I came across the blog
of an American ex-pat in Spain who described similar frustrations. It is comforting to know I’m not alone in
this daily tug-of-war to get the language right.
Not long after completing that
entry, and along this same vein of thought, I read a very interesting news
article about a study that was done regarding unemployed workers. Princeton economist Alan Krueger (who,
incidentally, was chosen in 2001 by then President Barack Obama to chair the
White House Council of Economic Advisors) interviewed over 6,000 unemployed
workers for over half a year. Up until
this study was done and for the longest time, economists held the belief that
when people lost their job, the longer they were out of work, the more vigorous
their search for a new job would become. The thinking was that while a person
remained unemployed, the absence of a paycheck and the accumulation of bills
would spur a person into a greater frenzy to find a new position. However, Mr. Krueger’s results actually refuted
that belief. In fact, he found that the longer people are out of work, the less and less time they spend looking
for a job. The reason? It all comes down to small wins and small losses, and
their effect on the human psyche.
In the article, Alan Krueger, the Economics of Small Wins and Losses, written by
Charles Duhigg, Krueger explains that as
a Cornell professor once appropriately stated in 1984, “Small wins are the
steady application of a small advantage.” In other words, small wins (succeeding
at something, overcoming a challenge, getting accepted for a job position, etc
etc) give a person the confidence he or she needs to take the risk necessary to
continue competing and continue moving forward. Small wins “..convince people
that bigger achievements are within reach.”
However, just as an accumulation of
wins encourages a person and imbues him with confidence, an accumulation of
losses has the exact opposite effect. This is what was highlighted in Krueger’s
study. As small losses mount up in a person’s life, “...people can become so
sensitized to losses that they begin to anticipate them, and become less
motivated to try.” For example, experiencing
the constant rejection of job
applications makes the applicant feel greater disappointment. Before long, the applicant begins anticipating rejection before it even happens. These losses have
the power of reducing the job applicant's ability to even try to continue the search for employment. New coping mechanisms begin to develop: those of sleeping in later or
taking numerous breaks from job hunting altogether.
After reading all of this, I had an
epiphany: in many ways, the trials and tribulations one experiences while
trying to communicate in a non-native language mimic the results of Alan Krueger’s
study. I have said time and again during this blog that earlier on in my
Spanish learning days, there were times I didn’t even want to start a
conversation with someone in Spanish because
I made a lot of mistakes. I was also afraid that I wouldn’t be able to
understand the speaker. Either way I would (in my mind) come across looking
foolish. This fear of looking or sounding foolish in Spanish made me not even want to try.
Today, things are different. I have grown in the language- my vocabulary
has expanded and I’ve had much more practice speaking and listening. Because
I’ve experienced many more successful communications with patients, my
confidence in the language has grown. And
it’s because my confidence has grown that I’m not as fearful when talking in
Spanish because I know I’ll be able to express myself and, in turn, be able to
figure out what the patient is saying. I still have a long way to go—there’s
always room for improvement—but I’m much more proactive in Spanish than I was
in the past.
After Alan Krueger’s ground-breaking discovery
of the power of small wins and losses, further studies were done by other
investigators over the years as to what to do to solve the problem of overcoming the confidence lost from an
accumulation of small losses. How can you encourage these disillusioned workers
to reignite their job search and instill
confidence in themselves? How can a non-native language learner push herself
to communicate when the grammar mistakes build? The answer: you have to reset expectations. In
essence, you have to alter a perceived loss into an actual win. Take, for
example, the workers in the above scenario.
When sending out a resume, the worker looks upon a callback for an
interview as the win, so when he doesn’t get it, he feels he’s lost. If one
resets the goal from a callback for an interview to simply sending out the
resumes to as many potential employers as possible, then the act of
successfully sending them out is the win. Callbacks are irrelevant.
When applying this to my speaking
Spanish with patients, instead of me focusing on getting all the grammar and
conjugation right, I should set the goal of simple understanding between doctor
and patient. Maybe I’ll accidentally turn a feminine noun into a masculine one
(potential loss, if I’m focusing on grammar as goal), but if the patient
understands the point I was making (win! win! win!), then that’s the only goal
that should matter.
As we transition from this eve of 2016 to 2017, let's not be afraid to take on new challenges in the face of failure or potential failure. If we're learning something and moving forward with that knowledge, then we have the potential to turn every 'loss' into a win. Happy New Year, everyone!
References
Duhigg, Charles. “Alan Krueger, and
the Economics of Small Wins (and Losses).” http://charlesduhigg.com/alan-krueger-and-the-economics-of-small-wins-and-losses/
(Accessed December 1,
2016).
Philips,
Matthew. “Who is Alan B. Krueger?” Freakonomics. http://freakonomics.com/2011/08/29/who-is-alan-b-krueger/
29 August 2011. (Accessed
December 1, 2016).
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| Courtesy: Charles McDonald, Charlottesville Real Estate Solutions |
