Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about why pretending to be Batman can make you work harder,

how long a decapitated head remains conscious, and the chemistry behind autumn's

color-changing leaves.

Happy Halloween!

Let's satisfy some spooky curiosity. Everybody could do with some help getting through mindless tasks they can't stand doing, right?

Well, new research suggests that little kids tend to stick to those boring tasks better

if they are pretending to be Batman.

Perfect Halloween story.

It is and adorable.

The Batman effect was discovered by a team of psychologists led by Rachel White and grit expert

Angela Duckworth who set out to explore how kids might think about work and strategies

that are the most effective. The researchers recruited 180 kids between the ages of 4 and 6 and split them up into three groups.

One group was encouraged to think of themselves in the third person and ask questions like,

Is Billy working hard?

One group asks themselves,

am I working hard in the first person?

And the third group was assigned a fictional identity,

like Bob the Builder,

Dora the Explorer, Rapunzel, or Batman, and then asked about their work in the third person as well.

...