As the first week of the Olympics nears a close, athletes continue to face intense psychological pressure. Olympians navigate victories, losses and the uncertainty that sets in mid-competition.
Thomas Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell, studied counterfactual thinking and its impact on the emotions of medal winners. He says that bronze medalists often appear happier than their competitors who win silver.
Gilovich says: “During the first week of the Winter Olympics in Italy, we’ve seen some pained expressions on the faces of a number of silver medalists. And that makes sense: they’ve endured blood, sweat, and tears to try to realize the dream of winning a gold medal, but come up just a bit short.
“But the bronze medalists also came up short, shorter in fact, and we haven’t seen as many pained expressions on their faces. Why not? While it’s easy for the silver medalist to imagine something they could have done just a little better and capture the gold, it’s harder for the bronze medalists to do so. There’s more ground to make up. What’s easier for them is to imagine being one-step down, coming in fourth, and being left off the medal stand.
“Because we evaluate what happens to us both in terms of what it was and what might have been, there are times when – emotionally – less is more.”
