Did you know that the expectations we set have a lot of influence? Whether it is expectations about our own lives or about how others should behave, what we should achieve, or the decisions others should make, these assumptions They have a great influence on the way we and those around us perceive and relate to the environment , although we are not aware of it. In the words of American writer Earl Nightingale, “Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.”
And this, of course, is reflected in all areas of life, from the goals that a person sets and the partners they choose to the emotions they experience or the academic results they obtain. In fact, numerous studies have shown that The expectations that parents and/or teachers have about student performance can positively or negatively affect their academic performance It is what the American psychologist Robert Rosenthal called the Pygmalion Effect or self-fulfilling prophecies. A phenomenon much more common than we think and that, to a greater or lesser extent, affects us all.
Expectations are part of our lives, whether we want them to or not. They begin to form as we grow, from a complex combination of experiences, desires and knowledge, and they accompany us throughout our entire existence In this way, we end up carrying numerous assumptions about the future, more or less realistic, about our own life or the lives of those around us. This is because our mind needs to make assumptions to guide our behavior.
In fact, most of the decisions we make are not based exclusively on objective data as we usually think, but on the expectations we have about the results. Basically, behind every decision lies the confidence that our expectations will come true and we will have the results we expect. And this is not negative in itself. Expectations prepare us for action, they make us mentally anticipate what may happen, helping us to foresee an action plan that allows us to avoid unpleasant surprises. The problem is that, many times, these expectations condition our decisions and limit our opportunities.
Whether it is your own expectations or those of others, Expectations often lead us to take results for granted when in reality they are nothing more than mere assumptions Thus, we end up acting accordingly, clinging to that preconceived idea as if it were a lifeline, reducing our range of options and promoting the expected result, without hardly realizing it. This is what often happens with children who perceive the expectations that their parents, grandparents, teachers or any other person in their environment has for them and act accordingly, driven unconsciously and involuntarily, in an attempt to satisfy the image they have. the rest have theirs.
This was confirmed by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in their book “Pygmalion at School” in which they collected their experimental studies on the effect of expectations, specifically in the school environment. In this reading, the authors state: “our behavior is largely determined by rules and expectations that allow us to predict how that person will behave in a given situation, even if we have never met that person and do not know how they differ from others.” . An effect that occurs in all areas of our lives, but is very easy to notice in the academic field.
How expectations influence academic performance
Did you know Academic success is not only determined by intelligence , but also depends on other factors such as curiosity, optimism, self-confidence and expectations? This was revealed by research carried out by the professor at the University of Oviedo Francisco Martín del Buey in which he analyzed the influence of expectations on academic performance. However, this is not a new result; already in the 1960s, psychologist Robert Rosenthal demonstrated how a researcher’s expectations could influence the behavior of the subjects studied and, years later, he analyzed the same effect in the field. school.
In one of their most interesting experiments, Rosenthal and Jacobson administered an intelligence test to a group of children before the start of the school year to identify students who could stand out from the rest of the class. At least this is what they told their future teachers. After analyzing the results, they gave them a list of “special” students who had an exceptional capacity for learning and creativity. However, what they didn’t tell the teachers was that the students on that list had actually been chosen at random.
After six months, after a year and then at the end of two years, the researchers repeated the test on the students and found that, as expected, the students with a “special” ability had improved their IQ compared to the students. the rest of the students. How did this happen? It turns out that teachers developed higher expectations for “special” students so that they were proposed more complex and advanced study plans and tasks, while the rest were presented with simpler activities in line with their intellectual level because their expectations were lower.
Basically, teachers adapted the school program to the children based on the expectations they had of them. Hence, they encouraged more students who they believed were better and lowered the bar in the case of “less advanced” children. The result? Expectations ended up being fulfilled as if they were a prophecy. Children with “superior” abilities perceived the expectations placed on them, made more efforts and obtained better results, while the other students put less effort into their tasks because they considered them simple and unmotivating, which ended up having an impact on their performance.
Without a doubt, expectations, especially when they are based on more subjective than objective aspects, can have an enormous and unpredictable influence on academic performance. Are directly affect motivation, self-image, self-worth and self-esteem Believing in yourself or knowing that others trust you can provide the drive and motivation necessary to try harder and do your best, achieving better results. The same happens in the opposite case. Not having too high expectations about our performance or the performance of our children can lead to lack of commitment and demotivation, reaffirming those expectations.
However, it is not just about having low or high expectations, their intensity is also important. There are many cases of parents or teachers who set the bar too high and have very high expectations about the performance of children and/or young people, leading to academic failure. Or, on the contrary, those cases in which there are very low expectations that end in academic success.
Just as high expectations can be motivating and set students on the path to success, Too high expectations can lead to excess pressure and a fear of failure which, poorly managed, can not only inhibit curiosity and interest in studying, but also limit freedom of thought, cognitive abilities and lacerate self-esteem.
The vicious circle of expectations and academic results: psychological consequences
There is no doubt that expectations, both external and personal, can play a significant role in academic results. It is an element that can instil motivation and inspiration or, on the contrary, drain them. However, they not only work as an activating agent that then disappears, but they accompany us throughout the entire process. In this way, positive expectations about academic results can effectively lead to good performance, which, in turn, reinforces these expectations. In the opposite case, exactly the same thing happens.
Nurturing negative expectations about academic results can affect cognitive performance, which, in turn, reaffirms those expectations to return to the starting point.
It is a vicious circle that is very difficult to get out of and that can gain special strength in cases in which there are low academic results. In these situations, the feedback between low academic performance and negative expectations can generate numerous psychological consequences that go beyond the school context and that can affect the emotional stability of the person, since they can lead to:
Having low academic results that are fed by increasingly negative expectations can significantly affect self-concept and self-image. Because of that a person may develop a negative self-image believing that she is not good enough, intelligent, creative or disciplined, which in the long term will not only impact her school results, but also her interpersonal relationships, her future goals or her decisions.
2. Demotivation
Getting poor academic results over and over again can cause a person to end up losing motivation and stop trying to improve The result will be that she will enter a vicious circle in which she will get increasingly worse results and feel more unmotivated. A problem that can also affect other spheres of your life, causing you to lose motivation to discover new passions or seek new challenges.
3. Feeling of failure
Academic results can influence a person’s sense of success or failure. In the same way that getting good grades can generate a feeling of success, obtaining low results can lead to a feeling of failure and make a person feel like a loser. And from there to believing that you can also fail in other areas of your life, there is only one step.
4. Low self-esteem
Feeling that we are not capable of achieving good academic results can also affect self-esteem. This leads us to think that we are not good enough, creative or intelligent enough. However, the problem is that this way of thinking can deeply damage our global self-esteem, having repercussions on other contexts of daily life.
5. Negative emotions
Another of the most common psychological consequences of obtaining low academic results is related to emotional balance. Feeling like you have failed can lead to anger, resentment, and pessimism , but it can also be a source of disappointment, frustration and dissatisfaction. Poorly managed, these emotions can affect relationships with people around you, damage self-worth and become the perfect breeding ground for developing psychological problems such as depression.
Concluding…
Fortunately, it is possible to learn to work on expectations to prevent them from having such a profound effect on our lives or on the lives of the people around us, in the same way that it is possible to learn to manage academic results in a different way to counteract their impact on other spheres of life.
Through psychological therapy it is possible to identify the expectations that prevent growth or that represent an added burden for the people in the environment, modify the way in which a person relates to these expectations and use them to their advantage to improve their academic results.
