 |
| Junior libero Courtney Poirier prior to the first match of the season in Cortland, N.Y. (photo credit: Lori Poirier) |
Does wearing a different-colored jersey actually make you a better defensive player? A famous test from experimental psychology can give us a hint.
See how long it takes you to name the colors of the words from this list (not the words themselves):
Seeing as the name of the color and the color itself was the same, it probably didn't take you much time. Now try this one, again naming the color, not the word:
Still not hard, but the second one probably took more time. This is called the Stroop test, proof that interference occurs in the brain during complicated attention tasks.
Interestingly, people can get better at the Stroop test when wearing particular clothes. A professor from Colombia business school showed that his research participants got 50% better at the test when wearing a white doctor's coat.
But here's the kicker: when people were told the same white coat was a painter's jacket, the 50% improvement went away. The implication is clear -- "I'm not a smart doctor, I'm just a painter." This very real psychological effect is called embodied cognition.
The libero jersey says to an athlete, "you're the best defensive player on the team." That unspoken communication holds more power than any word we've invented.
But here's the kicker: when people were told the same white coat was a painter's jacket, the 50% improvement went away. The implication is clear -- "I'm not a smart doctor, I'm just a painter." This very real psychological effect is called embodied cognition.
The libero jersey says to an athlete, "you're the best defensive player on the team." That unspoken communication holds more power than any word we've invented.