Pygmalion effect: you can do it!

Have you ever doubted yourself and your capabilities? You start thinking that “I cannot do this” or “I will definitely fail”. But then your friends come up to you and they start hyping you up. They tell you that you can do it and encourage you to take up new opportunities. Your family supports you and they provide a positive environment. You finally start believing in yourself and your self perception about your capabilities change. You start thinking “I can do this”.

But what happens if you think “I should give this a try, I can definitely perform well” and instead of your loved ones encouraging you, they start doing the opposite. This might decrease your self confidence and your self perception may change in a negative way. You start thinking “I cannot do this”.

When everyone believes in your capabilities and potential, your self perception increases and this boosts your motivation to perform better. This is called the Pygmalion effect. High expectations help improve the performance of a person.

When others encourage us and help raise our self confidence, our motivation increases and we automatically try to do better. Our performance increases. Our self perception influences our behaviour. If we perceive ourselves as someone who can never perform well and is unable to give their best, then we will have a negative self concept. We may be less confident, timid and reserved.

One way of welcoming the Pygmalion effect is by surrounding yourself with people who believe in you. Trying to be more self confident and optimistic can directly help improve your self perception without the need of others. But we should always be careful not to confuse confidence with over confidence.

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash