ZIEGARNIK EFFECT

Have you ever thought of a job that you enthusiastically started and left unfinished last week while you were doing your routine work during the day? If your answer is yes, the reason is clear; your brain is forcing you to complete the work you left unfinished. From another perspective, the unconscious part of your mind is pressing the conscious part to finish the unfinished business. 

An important feature of human memory is the ability to recall previously unresolved problems or tasks, especially when conditions are more favorable for their solution. Bluma Zeigarnik (1927), a Russian Psychologist, is widely recognized for his finding that interrupted tasks are better remembered than completed ones. The Zeigarnik effect in the Gestalt movement can be related to the need for closure. Zeigarnik (1927) states that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones. The Zeigarnik Effect can be defined as the tendency to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones. Some observations such as waiters remembering unpaid accounts better than paid ones, unfinished love relationships, holidays, negative life events were effective in the emergence of the concept. The need for cognitive closure, on the other hand, is one of the topics that has recently gained importance in behavioral-neuroscience, and the individual's need to reach certain information on a particular subject, instead of confusion and uncertainty, is the desire to make a decision. There is a positive relationship between the need for closure and the Zeigarnik Effect. If a job is left unfinished, the need for cognitive completion kicks in and the person remembers the details of that job better. For example, students who take a break while studying remember the subjects they studied better than students who work without a break. 

It is possible to talk about the Ziegarnik Effect not only in daily life problems but also in human relations. Imagine that in your high school years, the other party suddenly refused to give you an explanation and ended your friendship by displaying a cold attitude. In your friend's eyes, this is an already completed relationship, while in your eyes it is an incomplete friendship. Because of this, you will probably forget this friend more difficult and after a few years, various scenarios will come to your mind about why your relationship ended suddenly. It is possible to talk about a similar situation for romantic relationships. The Ziegarnik Effect has a role in the fact that the problems that you left unresolved with your partner while in a relationship become the subject of discussion in the coming years. To eliminate this effect, partners should be open to each other and no problems should be swept under the carpet. In the long run, as these are remembered, they will cause you to focus on the negative aspects of the relationship. In order to strengthen the relationship, it would be a more correct approach to talk to your partner about the problems you have experienced before a long time. As the problems are resolved, the bond between the partners gets stronger (Gottman, 2012). As we see in the same friendship relationship example, if your partner suddenly terminates your relationship; Since this will be recorded in your memory as an "unfinished love", your mind will remind you of that person and your memories more often with the activation of this effect, and it will be much more difficult to overcome the end of your relationship over time. 

In order to protect our mental health and not to complicate our lives with unfinished relationships, it is important that we do not avoid solving our daily problems, and that we find solutions to our problems even in the long run. In our bilateral relations, at least with this awareness, it would be more correct to discuss our problems in a healthier way and if we want to end the relationship, it would be more accurate to end the relationship by explaining it to the other person in an appropriate way. 

REFERENCES 

1. Zeigarnik, B (1927). On finished and unfinished tasks. Psychologische Forschung, 9(185), pp. 1 85. 

2. Atak H, Syed M, Çok F (2016). Need for Closure as a New Neuropsychological Concept. Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2016 ;8(3):290-302. 

3. Gottman, J. (2012). What makes love last? How to build trust and avoid betrayal. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster.