Most of us have experienced vicarious mastery, even if we didn’t have the words for it. Picture this. You’re struggling with a big research project at work. You’re the only person working on the task and it feels daunting. After a few days of alarming unproductivity, you start to conclude it’s not only hard – it’s impossible. As you get more and more convinced that what you’re attempting is completely unachievable, you get further and further off target. Now imagine the same task, except this time, before starting the project, you saw someone else present their research project on a similar
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