Mere Urgency Effect
阅读材料
Mere Urgency Effect
When people have many different tasks to complete, they have to choose how to prioritize them. Logically, people should prioritize doing the most important tasks that they stand to gain the most from completing. However, a phenomenon known as the mere urgency effect may occur, causing people to mistakenly focus on the urgency rather than the importance of a task. Thus, they may make a poor decision and complete tasks that have immediate deadlines and are merely urgent over tasks that are more significant but have deadlines further in the future. This can have a negative impact on the satisfactory completion of the more important tasks.
听力材料
So here's an example for my own life. Last month, I was planning to spend the morning preparing a big presentation that I would be giving at a psychology conference that was coming up in a few days. The conference was a pretty big deal because some well-known people in my field would be there, and if they liked my presentation, it could lead to some important research opportunities for me in the future. So I just sat down at my desk and was starting to go over my notes when I got a reminder email from the university about a survey. They were asking faculty members to fill out a survey about ways to improve working conditions for professors on campus. Now we weren't required to do this survey, but of course, the university was hoping we would, and this was the last day we had to do it. And when I saw the survey was going to expire that day, I clicked on the Online link that was included in the email, and I ended up spending a couple of hours filling out the survey and not working on the presentation that I'd be giving at the conference. And as I look back, I mean, my presentation at the conference was okay, but it didn't end up opening any doors for me professionally. And I think it could have been a lot better if I'd spent those extra couple of hours working on it instead of doing that survey.
问题
Explain how the example from the professor's lecture illustrates the mere urgency effect.
我的笔记 编辑笔记
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基础版回答
The professor’s example illustrates the mere urgency effect by showing how he prioritized an unimportant but urgent task over an important one.
Last month, he needed to prepare a presentation for a major psychology conference, which could lead to important career opportunities. However, he received an email about a university survey due that day. Although the survey was optional and less significant, he felt pressured by the deadline and spent hours completing it instead of working on his presentation.
As a result, his conference presentation was only average and didn’t help his career. This demonstrates the mere urgency effect—he focused on the urgent (the survey) rather than the important (the presentation), which negatively affected his performance on the more valuable task.
高阶精简版
The professor’s example demonstrates the mere urgency effect—choosing urgent but trivial tasks over important ones.
He prioritized an optional university survey due that day over preparing a career-critical conference presentation. Though the survey was insignificant, its tight deadline tricked him into focusing on it. As a result, his rushed presentation underperformed, missing a key professional opportunity.
This shows how the mere urgency effect distorts judgment: urgency overrides importance, harming long-term outcomes.
高阶版语料版
The professor’s personal experience perfectly exemplifies the mere urgency effect—a cognitive bias where people prioritize seemingly urgent but less important tasks over truly significant ones.
He had a high-stakes psychology conference presentation coming up, which could have advanced his career if well-prepared. Instead, when he saw a last-day reminder for an optional university survey—a low-impact task—he impulsively shifted focus due to its perceived urgency. Despite knowing the presentation mattered more, he spent hours on the survey, leaving little time to refine his talk.
The consequences were clear: his rushed presentation was mediocre and failed to create professional opportunities. This aligns with the mere urgency effect, where the illusion of urgency (the survey’s deadline) overrode rational prioritization (the presentation’s long-term value). His example underscores how this bias can undermine productivity by diverting effort from meaningful goals to trivial, time-sensitive ones. -
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