“As long as we treat him like a criminal, he’ll always think he is one”
~ Peter, White Collar episode 46
We read about an experiment in psychology class where researchers studied the progress of students in two different types of classes. They told the teachers of one class that all the students in that class had been screened and handpicked, and were among the brightest students of the school. In truth, those students were no different from any of the students in any of the other classes at the school, and had been chosen pretty much at random. But after some time, those students that had been “singled out” did indeed begin to make remarkable progress. The teachers subconsciously treated them differently in accordance to their belief that these students were special, and this had a positive affect on the students’ performances.
This study and this quote remind me of how much we can be and are affected by how others see us—whether or not we want to be. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to truly not care at all about what the people around us think.
It also makes me wonder what kind of difference we could make if we just try harder to see the good in everyone around us and keep positive images of them all in our heads.
This reminds me of an episode of "Hey Arnold!", a Nickelodeon cartoon I watched when I was a kid. In the episode, the students in a class take a test to see what careers they might do best at. One student, who's a bit dull-witted, accidentally gets his test mixed up with another student's. As a result, he gets back a result telling him that he's a genius and could do anything. Because he thinks he's a genius, he starts reading a lot and performing well in school, and he ends up actually being a genius. It's interesting to hear that this sort of thing has actually been observed (although in the case you mention, it was the teachers, not the students, who were tricked).
ReplyDeleteI do seem to remember seeing that cartoon before, though I never sat down and actually watched it. Interesting though. I can believe it happening. When you think about it, what we consciously think of ourselves does affect a lot of the choices that we make.
Delete"Tricked" is an interesting choice of words. I suppose it sort of "tricked", isn't it?