NPR: Study Shows Quitters Are Winners

Study Shows Quitters Are Winners

Winners never quit and quitters never win. Unless you count being healthier and happier. Seriously.

Two Canadian psychologists, Gregory Miller of the University of British Columbia and Carsten Wrosch of Concordia University in Montreal, wondered about the link between tenacity and health. So they developed a way to distinguish between "people who are relentless by nature and those who are much more accepting of life's curveballs." Or Bulldogs and Quitters.

For a study published in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science, the two men followed a group of teenagers for a year. Their results indicate that people who know their own limits are healthier in almost every measure than people who won't give up.

As Wray Herbert writes at Newsweek, "knowing when to throw in the towel is only half the story."

The psychologists also sorted both the Bulldogs and the Quitters by their willingness to re-engage and set new goals after they gave up on something important. While they did not find a direct link between re-engagement and physical health, they did find that people who readily jumped back into life had a greater sense of purpose and mastery and were less likely to ruminate about the past. Setting new goals appears to buffer the emotional consequences of failure, especially for those, like the Bulldogs, who have the hardest time admitting defeat.

Or, quoting Herbert quoting W.C. Fields, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it."

That's all for this week. If you see anything interesting, e-mail us at newsblog@npr.org.

6:05 PM ET | 09-21-2007 | permalink

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Attention Over Achievers: The Intellectual-Left Movement is Dead

The Intellectual-Left Movement has had it's day. Just like Davy Crockett once had at the Alamo. The Movement is a fine memory. But it's an anachronism now. In fact, the Intellectual Left has become an oxymoron. Like Army Intelligence is an oxymoron.

The largest contributors to the Intellectual Left's Antiwar Movement are the Neoconservatives. The Neocons know that the Intellectual Left isn't going to march on Washington protesting the lack of health care or any other domestic issues. Nope. The Intellectual Left will continue marching on Washington protesting the war in Iraq. They might as well march in protest of craters on the moon. The global elite create and maintain these global wars. Their money is far too big for the Intellectual Left to compete with on an international scale.

In fact, the Neoconservatives have so much money that every time the media begins to focus on a domestic problem, the Neocons help organize another march on Washington to protest the war in Iraq. That way nobody is focusing on domestic issues.

The Intellectual Left is in a continual downward spiral of protesting a war they have absolutely no affect over. While the Neocons pull sleight of hand picking America???s domestic pocket.

Blackwater isn't leaving Iraq. They'll change their name. The war isn't ending. The domestic infrastructure in America is falling apart.

So, it's time you, of the Intellectual-Left, put down your philosophy books and take to understanding what it's about protecting yourselves, your family and your neighborhoods. Which you haven't been doing. Much less protect neighborhoods in Iraq.

You keep politically losing. Time after time after time. Even when the Democrats won seats in the midterm elections, nothing changed. Wait. That's not true. More troops were sent to Iraq. Something did change.

You can't end the war in Iraq. But you might be able to do something domestically if you learn to focus, and get over the habit of being losers.

fred call

Sent by fred call | 8:47 PM ET | 09-22-2007

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