Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety

• Autores: Alison Wood Brooks, Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino, Adam D. Galinsky, Michael I. Norton, Maurice E. Schweitzer
• Localización: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, ISSN-e 1095-9920, Vol. 137, Nº. 0, 2016, págs. 71-85
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Abstract From public speaking to first dates, people frequently experience performance anxiety. And when experienced immediately before or during performance, anxiety harms performance. Across a series of experiments, we explore the efficacy of a common strategy that people employ to cope with performance-induced anxiety: rituals. We define a ritual as a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often characterized by formality and repetition that lacks direct instrumental purpose. Using different instantiations of rituals and measures of anxiety (both physiological and self-report), we find that enacting rituals improves performance in public and private performance domains by decreasing anxiety. Belief that a specific series of behaviors constitute a ritual is a critical ingredient to reduce anxiety and improve performance: engaging in behaviors described as a “ritual” improved performance more than engaging in the same behaviors described as “random behaviors.”