Psychological Study
In 1995, a study was carried out by social psychologists Victoria Medvec, Scott Madey and Thomas Gilovich on the effects of counterfactual thinking on the Olympics. The study showed that athletes who won the bronze medal were significantly happier with their winning than those athletes who won the silver medal. The silver medalists were more frustrated because they had missed the gold medal, while the bronze medalists were simply happy to have received any honors at all (instead of no medal for fourth place). This is more pronounced in knockout competitions, such as the FIFA World Cup, where the bronze medals are achieved by winning a playoff, whereas silver medals are awarded after a defeat in the final.
Read more about this topic: Bronze Medal
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“A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and so communicating, through hope, new activity to the torpid spirit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)