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1 October 2003
Where's my waiter?
The
Zeigarnik
Effect
By Terry Riley
 As
the ticket agent at the airline check-in counter hands you your boarding
pass and points you to your departure gate, he says that he will call the
agent at the gate to try to get you upgraded. He doesn’t.
As
the flight attendant hands you your box lunch, she says that she will come
right back with your special request for non-fat milk. She doesn’t.
As
the rental car agent hands you your contract, he says that he will call
ahead to the dispatching area to see if he can fulfill your request for a
domestic model.
He doesn’t.
As
the clerk at the hotel check-in desk hands you your room key and directs you
to the elevators, she says that she will call housekeeping to deliver an
extra blanket to your room. She doesn’t.
As
the waiter hands you your paid receipt for dinner, he says that he will
return to warm up your coffee. He doesn’t.
A conspiracy
What’s going on here? Is there a conspiracy among service providers to
withhold service from you? Do these people have it in for you?
Well before you go getting all paranoid, it’s probably not about you
at all. It’s most likely about them. These people are probably just
succumbing to a psychological phenomenon called the Zeigarnik Effect.
The Zeig… what?
Okay, a little background (or so the story goes): While sitting in a
restaurant in Vienna—every good story about a psychologist takes place in
Vienna—Bluma Zeigarnik noticed that a waiter could remember a seemingly
endless number of items that had been ordered by his customers. However,
once he had delivered the orders to the waiting diners, he no longer
remembered what he had just served.
What Zeigarnik had witnessed was the fact that people remember the
particulars of incomplete tasks, but once they complete that task, they
forget about it and about its associated odds and ends. In the case of
Zeigarnik’s waiter, after delivering the orders to his patrons, he forgot
about the orders—and often the patrons who had placed them.
Though Zeigarnik didn’t get her coffee cup refilled following her
meal, she did get into the annals of psychology. Zeigarnik theorized that
an incomplete task or unfinished business creates “psychic tension” within
us. This tension acts as a motivator to drive us toward completing the
task or finishing the business. In Gestalt terms, we are motivated to seek
“closure.” (How often do we here that from psychologists?) Then, once
completed or finished, the tension dissipates and we move on to other open
issues.
Zeigarnik and you
So how does the Zeigarnik Effect affect you? Simple. Don’t allow a
service transaction to be completed until you receive the service you
request.
Don’t
take your ticket from the agent at the airline check-in counter until he
calls the gate agent regarding your upgrade.
Don’t
let the flight attendant leave until she activates the call button at your
seat as a reminder to return with your non-fat milk.
Don’t
accept the contract from the rental car agent until he calls the dispatch
area regarding your request for a domestic model.
Don’t
take your room key from the check-in clerk at the hotel until she calls
housekeeping for an additional blanket.
And
as Zeigarnik herself discovered, don’t pay your bill until you’ve been
served the last of your after-dinner coffee. Otherwise, as they probably
don’t say in Vienna, “Fugedaboudit.”
© 2003 Applied Psychology
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