What motivates runners?
Emily Balcetis, associate professor of psychology at New York University, examines this question.
Faculty Bio:
Dr. Emily Balcetis is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University and author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World. She is an award-winning behavioral scientist and author. She directs a research lab that pioneers the scientific investigation of motivation, uncovering previously unknown strategies that sustain people’s efforts to meet their goals. Dr. Balcetis focuses on issues including diversity in leadership, disparities in health, bias in the legal system, polarization in public opinion, and safety in cyber behavior, among others. She has appeared as a host for National Geographic and has served as a consultant for General Electric, Nestle, Nike, Pixar, the New York Times, Prudential Financial, Sandoz Pharmaceutical, and other industry leaders. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She has delivered two TEDx talks on motivation science and polarization in public opinion and earned her PhD from Cornell University.
Transcript:
Physical training shapes running over months and years. But what allows runners to adapt in real time? The answer is not just in their legs and lungs, it’s in their eyes. My research shows that visual attention gives runners a flexible way to support motivation and improve their performance while they’re on the move.
Visual attention works like a spotlight. It can be wide, taking in what’s on the left, right, above and below us. Or attention can be narrowly focused tightly on a single point ahead. Across multiple studies, I find that runners systematically shift the scope of this attentional spotlight as they progress through a run. And when they do, they can run farther and faster.
At the start of a run, people tend to use a wider scope of attention. They scan their environment, monitor others around them, and orient themselves to the course. But as physical demands increase and fatigue sets in, runners increasingly narrow their visual focus—often locking their gaze onto a small, goal-relevant target, like a sign, a bend in the road, or the finish line.
That shift matters. When people are experimentally instructed to narrow their attention rather than keep it wide, they move faster, investing more effort, and experience less physical pain—even though the distance and physical demands remain unchanged. Narrowing attention appears to make the goal appear closer and more attainable, increasing perceptions of their own ability to surmount the challenges that lie ahead, and helping runners persist when effort becomes costly.
Notably, more experienced and faster runners utilize this attentional narrowing strategy more than do slower runners. Faster runners focus their attention narrowly more intensely earlier on and scale up their narrowing as they progress through a run. The advantage faster runners have is not just physical conditioning—it’s also how they strategically deploy attention over time.
Together, these findings suggest that visual attention is more than a passive perceptual process. It can function as a tool runners can strategically leverage. By learning when to broaden focus and when to narrow it, runners can better match their strategies to the changing demands of a goal—and sometimes, run farther and faster simply by changing where they look.
