The influence of expectations on performance is called as the 'Pygmalion effect'. I just wanted to include the word cos it sounds cool
There's a bunch of past studies I'm sure everyone knows about eg: students who teachers expect to do well based on false info end up doing better than other students do I need references aaaahhh well I'm not getting graded and this is just meant to be a casual conversation starter.
I was wondering, how many of you guys feel like you (un)consciously try harder when teachers think you are 'smart' in certain subjects, or put in less effort if you think your teacher hasn't got high expectations for you?
In addition to this there's studies eg how people who fail a task the first time put less effort/time in trying the second time compared to people who can do it the first time.
How much do you think labelling yourself in terms of your skill at something when you first begin something effects where you are with it now?
In primary school in grade prep/one when you are sorted into reading/maths groups based on how well you do, does that begin to build up an identity of how strong or weak you are in those areas and affect how hard you push yourself to do well throughout your school years in a vicious/virtuous cycle?
Spoiler
Personally I feel like when I label myself as something most of the time my actions follow to make it into a self fulfilling prophecy thing.
-Eg, I'm trying to avoid saying or thinking that I've lost my running habit, because I feel like after I told people I stopped running (even though I was just running a lot less) it made me kind of put that as the default so it's decreased even more and now it seems like more effort now that I have to 'start' again.
-Also I feel like my marks went a little downhill in maths in VCE and then I decided that 'I'm bad at maths now' and that kind of stopped me trying harder to get better marks again.
-in terms of other's expectations, a uni friend I've only talked to on zoom called me 'bubbly' and I feel like I act more bubbly/energetic/loud when I talk to them because that's what they expect from me now.
>more generally I do this often, when I meet people for the first time I often keep the same energy levels that I first had when I talked to them, because I am thinking that they 'expect' me to be a shy/loud/etc because that's how they probably perceived me in our first interaction so I keep it consistent. It's not really on purpose, (and it doesn't last that extreme if I'm interacting with the people a lot).
Thoughts?