The Expectation Effect (Think Yourself to Better Health and Performance)
Legendary in 3.5 min
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It was 1979 and eight men in their 70s stepped out of a van in front of a monastery in New Hampshire.
This was no ordinary monastery. It was a time warp.
As they shuffled forward, a few of them arthritically stooped, a couple with canes, they heard Perry Como crooned on a vintage radio, Ed Sullivan welcomed guests on a black-and-white TV. The books, the magazines, the pictures, everything in the monastery conjured up 1959 - exactly 20 years ago.
This was an experiment conducted by renowned Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer. The hypothesis? That our mental states can determine our bodily functions, that if we perceived ourselves as younger, we can in fact become younger.
Participants were measured pre and post the one week stay on things like physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, hearing, vision etc.
A control group lived in the same monastery for a week, but didn't act as if if it was decades ago.
After a week of "living" as if it was 1959, 63% of the test group had better intelligence scores at the end of the experiment than they did at the beginning, compared to 44% in the control group. In additional those in the test group even looked younger, an average of two years younger in their "after" photos as compared to their "before" photos, mostly because of their better posture.
On the last day of the study, Langer wrote, men "who had seemed so frail" just days before ended up playing "an impromptu touch football game on the front lawn."
(See Dr. Langer talk about it HERE on CBS.)
You ask, how is that possible? Actually, this is not surprising.
When you believe that something affects you in a particular way, it often does.
This has been thoroughly studied in the placebo effect, where multiple clinical trials across 1,082 patients have reported an average significant effectiveness of placebos of 35.2 + 2.2%.
The opposite is also true - the nocebo effect where negative expectations can harm our health. In a study involving side effects to real medications, it was found that men who were told about a side effect were actually 3x more likely to suffer that side effect. In this case, it was the side effect of erectile dysfunction for the drug finasteride to treat enlarged prostates.
BASE PRINCIPLE
Where your mind goes, your body follows.
WHAT IF?
What if you could use your mind to control your physiology? What if positive thinking does create more positive realities?
Another really interesting study by Crum and Langer involved 84 female room attendants working in seven different hotels. Half of them were informed that their job (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General's recommendations for a healthy lifestyle. Four weeks later, the informed group showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.
Here are five strategies to leverage the Expectation Effect:
(Note: This doesn't mean you don't do the work and it doesn't mean it'll work 100% of the time, it just means you're stacking the tdecko your favor by expecting something good to happen)
The Outlier: whenever there is some sort of probability statistic thrown at you, whether it's about a prognosis or odds of success, picture yourself as the outlier. "Small chance for greatness? That's me."
Lucky Charm: since we can't stay positive all the time, have something physical that helps you expect the best. This can be a coin, a crystal, a pendant - anything that is a symbol of luck for you.
Positive Mantra: create a few words that you can repeat to boost your positivity and expectations. "I bring the light." "It's my time."
Turn Back Time: just like the 1979 counter clockwise experiment, use music, pictures, videos to bring yourself back to a healthier and stronger time.
Pygmalion Club: the Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomena where people perform better when they are expected to do better. This is probably because those expectations from others translates to expectations of ourselves! Organize a group of people around you who have high expectations of you and find yourself rising to those expectations.
We've always surmised that our minds are powerful beyond our imagination. Let's use it for good!
"The mind is everything. What you think you become."
~Buddha
Live your legend 🤘🏽,
Sources:
Grierson, Bruce, What if Age Is Nothing but a Mind-Set?, New York Times Magazine, October 22, 2014 - LINK
Benedetti, Fabrizio, Historical Evolution of the Scientific Investigation of the Placebo Analgesic Effect, August 10, 2022 - LINK
Mysore, Venkataram, Finasteride and Sexual Side Effects, January 2012 - LINK
Crum, Alia et. al., Mind-Set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect, Journal of Psychological Science, February 2007 - LINK
Perera, Ayesh, The Pygmalion Effect: Definition & Examples, Simply Psychology, February 13, 2014 - LINK
Robson, David, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World, Book, February 14, 2023 - LINK
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