Galatea Effect: Do You Believe In Your Possibilities?
“This child is stupid”, “you will never amount to anything”, “get away, you don’t know how to do it”. These phrases clearly reflect a negative expectation regarding the person they refer to. And not only that, but whether they are expressed or not, a series of actions will probably be carried out that will make the subject introject that idea and end up behaving in the expected way.
This is known as the Pygmalion effect. But there is also an effect related to the same situation, although from a different perspective: we are talking about the Galatea effect
To better understand how the Pygmalion effect and the Galatea effect work, it may be useful to look at where these terms come from, its history being linked to mythology
The myth of Pygmalion presents him as king of Cyprus, who throughout his life had searched for the perfect woman to become his wife. However, he couldn’t find anyone. The king decided to dedicate his time to sculpture, an art in which he excelled. He decided to represent the perfect woman in one of his works, creating an ivory statue of such perfection that he ended up falling in love with it He named her Galatea and spent a long time admiring her. But the statue was still such a thing.
Pygmalion attended various religious celebrations and prayed to the gods to give him life, and Aphrodite, goddess of love and passion, responded to his prayers. Upon returning to her home, Pygmalion spent a long time sadly observing Galatea, finally kissing her. But surprisingly he found that the touch was warm. With a second kiss, Galatea came to life, falling in love with Pygmalion in turn.
Through the myth, we can see how Pygmalion’s desires and expectations caused him to carry out a series of actions that in turn would lead to those wishes and expectations coming true
From the same myth, what is called the Pygmalion effect has been extrapolated, according to which the expectations we project on others will cause us to take actions that in the long run will generate that type of behavior in the person in question. For example, if we think that a child is not going to amount to anything and we unconsciously project on that idea, in the long run it is more likely that the child will believe the same and end up fulfilling the behavior and role that was expected of him.
The Pygmalion effect is highly known in the world of psychology and education, and what others expect of them can have a great effect on individuals. But in the same way that other people’s expectations have an effect, so do your own expectations. In this way we can observe the existence of another important complementary effect to this one. This is the Galatea effect.
The Galatea effect
The Galatea effect It refers to the power that belief has regarding one’s own abilities and possibilities or lack thereof when it comes to achieving or not achieving success in our objectives.
If a person feels confident and capable of achieving what they want, they will have a much greater probability of achieving their goals since Your behavior will be more oriented and focused on them The subject will tend to depend more on his own effort and will feel much more committed to achieving the objectives.
On the contrary, someone who feels incapable of achieving what they want, who lacks confidence, will not dare to go all out for their goals. He will tend to doubt, to make possible errors and failures visible and his commitment to this will be more fragile, making it more likely that he will not fulfill what was his goal.
Your relationship with the perception of others
The Galatea effect does not only have an internal connotation. Our self-perception and self-confidence are projected externally through our attitudes and behaviors, so that others will capture them and be formed. an image of us based, among other things, on them
The image they form will be more positive or negative depending on what they can capture, and that image will influence how they treat us. As an example, if they see us as weak, they may be more likely to try to take advantage of or protect us, while if we project a more determined image, they may admire or envy us. Also in the expectations that others form of us
In the same way, the perception that others have of us and what they transmit to us will affect us. modifying to a certain degree our self-perception and with it our way of acting, which in turn makes the Galatea effect and the Pygmalion effect closely related.
However, what is most important in terms of predict our success or failure It is what we think about ourselves and our chances of achieving it, since a person can succeed even if their environment does not believe in it, while someone who does not believe in themselves will have a much more difficult time even if everyone around them supports them.
The Galatea effect is also related to the locus of control, understanding as such the link that we establish between what happens and what we do, that is, the attribution of events to one’s own actions or to other factors such as luck
A person who believes that their successes are due to internal, stable and global factors will perform much more active and goal-directed behaviors, while someone who thinks that they are due to external, unstable and particular factors may consider that their successes are not such. but mere chance and therefore you will lose the motivation to fight for your goals.
