Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

When practice makes imperfect: debilitating effects of overlearning.

E J Langer, L G Imber

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
    |November 1, 1979
    PubMed
    Summary
    This summary is machine-generated.

    Related Concept Videos

    You might also read

    Related Articles

    Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

    Sort by
    Same author

    Transcendental meditation, mindfulness, and longevity: an experimental study with the elderly.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·1989
    Same author

    Decreasing prejudice by increasing discrimination.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·1985
    Same author

    Premature cognitive commitment.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·1981
    Same author

    Reply to Douglas Davis.

    Journal of consulting and clinical psychology·1981
    Same author

    Role of mindlessness in the perception of deviance.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·1980
    Same author

    Environmental determinants of memory improvement in late adulthood.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·1979
    Same journal

    Outgroup friendships and social influence in the development of adolescent attitudes toward secondary outgroups.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    Same journal

    The impact of "relational" Artificial Intelligence on human well-being: A self-determination theory analysis.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    Same journal

    Is my loneliness killing me? Effects of loneliness and social isolation on transitions between cognitive status categories and death.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    Same journal

    Listening across the divide: High-quality listening promotes speakers' state well-being through basic psychological need satisfaction during disagreements.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    Same journal

    Morality cut both ways: The role of cognition and emotion in attitude moralization and demoralization.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    Same journal

    The predictive validity of vocational interests for life outcomes across adulthood.

    Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
    See all related articles

    Overlearning can decrease task performance by making skills inaccessible. This study shows that reminding individuals of task components can prevent performance decline, even in experts.

    Area of Science:

    • Cognitive Psychology
    • Expert Performance

    Background:

    • Overlearning a task can lead to automaticity and
    • mindlessness.
    • This may reduce conscious access to task components, potentially impairing performance under certain conditions.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To investigate how overlearning affects task performance, particularly when individuals question their competence.
    • To determine if making task components salient can prevent performance decrements in overlearned tasks.

    Main Methods:

    • Experiment 1: Varied practice levels (none, moderate, overpractice) and assigned status labels (none, assistant, boss) to assess performance.
    • Experiment 2: Manipulated the salience of task components for overlearned tasks to observe effects on performance.

    Related Experiment Videos

    Main Results:

    • Performance decrements occurred in subjects with no practice or overpractice who received an inferior status label.
    • Moderate practice subjects were unaffected by the inferior label, suggesting task components remained salient.
    • Making task components salient prevented performance debilitation in overlearned tasks.

    Conclusions:

    • Overlearning can make individuals vulnerable to performance decrements when their competence is questioned.
    • Maintaining salience of task components is crucial for experts to prevent such performance issues.