The Pygmalion Effect

In 1968, two researchers walked into a primary school just outside San Francisco and gave every student an IQ test.

Then they told the teachers something interesting. The test, they said, could identify which kids were about to bloom intellectually. And they handed over a list of names. The top 20 percent in testing. The ones on the verge of a excelling.

Here's the catch. The list was random. The test was real, but the names were pulled out of a hat. Those kids were no different to anyone else in the room.

At the end of the school year, the researchers came back and tested everyone again. The "bloomers" had made measurably bigger gains than their classmates. Not because they were smarter. But because their teachers believed they were. More attention. More patience. More belief that the effort would pay off. That's the Pygmalion Effect. The measurable effects of stories, labels and expectations.

You've felt this before…

Think about the last time someone believed in you before you'd earned it. A coach. A training partner. A friend. Someone who looked at you and said "you've got this" before you'd done anything to actually prove it. They believed in your character, before you had any evidence to back it up. They saw who you could become.

Chances are, as a result, you tried harder. Showed up when you didn't feel like it. Pushed harder because you started to believe or at least entertained the idea that it was true. Their belief gave you a standard to live up to. And you quietly started living up to it, potentially without you even realising it. The expectations others place on us don't just change how they treat us. Over time, they can influence how we see ourselves.

The kid who gets praised for being "a hard worker", starts acting in alignment with what we would call “a hard worker”. And inversely, the kid who gets called "lazy" stops trying hard, because there is no expectation for them to do anything special. Nobody hands you these labels with bad intent most of the time or even with awareness of the impact. A parent. A teacher. A coach. But you can carry them anyway.

And here's the trap. Without self awareness around creating your own story, you can start collecting evidence for the label others give you instead of testing it and defining it for yourself. Every setback confirms it. Every win gets explained away. The story someone else creates can quietly become the story you tell about yourself. Their expectation doesn’t just shape your behaviour. It can became your belief.

But, you're not a kid in a classroom anymore…

You can open your eyes and witness the experiment running. That's the difference.

Once you understand that expectations influence behaviour, you get opportunity to choose which ones you let in. Other people will hand you their version of who you are. Some of it built on old evidence. Some of it built on their own limits, not yours. You don't have to accept it just because it was offered. You ultimately get to decide what you believe about yourself.

Self awareness is being careful about believing the stories of people who can't see the vision you have for yourself. They're often not judging you on your potential. But rather judging your past, or worse, projecting their own ceiling onto you. Someone who's never done the thing, will always tell you the thing can't be done. Take the beliefs that serve you. Leave the rest behind.

Now let’s expand on the idea…

The effect doesn't need another person in the room to work. You hand yourself a label every single day. "I'm not built for this." "I could never do that" "This is just who I am under pressure." None of those are actually facts.

They're labels and expectations you've repeated long enough that they started acting like facts. And just like the teachers in that classroom, you treat yourself according to the label. You put in the effort of someone who expects to fall short. Then you fall short. Then you call it proof.

So here's what to do...

Pay attention to the labels you’re using and the expectations you're setting.

For the people around you, because your belief in them has more influence on them than you think. And most importantly for yourself, because the story you tell about who you are, is quietly writing you become long before you've done a single thing to prove it right.

Pick better labels. Set better expectations. Use the effect to your benefit.