Hobbits and Orcs

You might want to get that job, pass at school or university, improve a specific skill, or be successful in competition. For those who attended the coaching session at the Club recently, you would have heard that achieving your goals does not just happen; it takes hard work and planning. Having a well thought out and executed plan takes you from where you are to where you want to be and understanding and investing in the planning process for achieving your goal is often the key to success.

The Hobbits and Orcs puzzle is a famous example in cognitive psychology that demonstrates the process you have to go through to achieve a goal. It illustrates some of the successes and pitfalls you might come across. Have a go and try not to jump ahead to the answer.

Three hobbits and three orcs arrive at a riverbank, and they all want to cross to the other side. Fortunately, there is a boat available; however, it can carry only two creatures at a time. What really makes the situation complicated is that the orcs are vicious creatures. Whenever there are more orcs than hobbits on one side of the river, the orcs will immediately attack the hobbits and eat them up. Consequently, you should be certain that you never leave more orcs than hobbits on either riverbank. Although the orcs are vicious, they can be trusted to bring the boat back. Your challenge is to move all six creatures across the river without allowing the orcs to eat the hobbits. At least one creature must bring the boat back.

How did you do? If you are like most people, you probably noticed two things. One, you had to plan your steps and make sub-goals to get you step by step to where you wanted to be. Two, you probably believed you were making excellent progress up until about your sixth move. While there are several solutions to this problem, it is around midway that most people feel frustrated and uncomfortable. Why? It is at this stage that you would have realised that to move forward, you would have to take what you think is a step backwards if you had any hope of solving the problem. This feels uncomfortable because your desire is to make progress, to reduce the distance between where you started and where you want to be. Most people don’t like to do this and would rather keep going forward despite the evidence, logic and advice of others that suggest otherwise.

Why is this relevant? When trying to solve any problem or achieve a goal, sometimes, as you would have heard from Rick Duncan, you need to look at what you are doing. Is it working? Is your plan sufficient enough to help you get to where you want to be and what steps do you need to take to get there? If one of those steps shows that your plan needs revising or you need to change your technique, you are likely to perceive this as a setback. Say, for example, you are just not getting the results you want; for a while, you may need to practice a particular drill or skill. This might temporarily make you slower, less competitive and hit your confidence negatively. However, once you have taken this step and change your perception to a positive one and really focus on the work you need to do to reach your goals, you are likely to move quicker and more successfully towards where you want to be.

Oh yes, here is one of the possible solutions to Hobbits and Orcs (b = boat, H = hobbit, O = orc):

There is a particular point in this solution path where people get into difficulties, and that is Step 6. At this point the action that needs to be taken is to move one creature of each type back to the first side of the river. Consequently, about a third of participants prefer to go back to Step 5.

Pam Bubrzycki