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Published on: April 26, 2014
Personal bests as reference points
Ashton Anderson1,2, Etan A Green2,3
1Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G8; ashton@cs.toronto.edu.
Abstract:
Personal bests act as reference points. Examining 133 million chess games, we find that players exert effort to set new personal best ratings and quit once they have done so. Although specific and difficult goals have been shown to inspire greater motivation than vague pronouncements to "do your best," doing one's best can be a specific and difficult goal-and, as we show, motivates in a manner predicted by loss aversion.
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