What You Expect Will Happen (Pygmalion Syndrome)

Pygmalion is a character from Greek mythology. The magical story tells that he was a sculptor and set out to make a perfect statue. He did it. He sculpted a woman so beautiful, and so real, that Pygmalion himself fell in love with her work. To this character we owe the name to the Pygmalion syndrome.

He treated her like the great love of his life and devoted all his time to her. The goddess Aphrodite, moved by this unique love, gave life to the sculpture and, you know: they lived happily …

This allegory tells us about those situations that have such a strong presence in the mind that they end up becoming something real. This was realized by Rosenthal, a researcher of human behavior. He noticed that the imaginary ended up becoming real in the world of the human.

The effects of Pygmalion Syndrome

David McClelland, in his “Study of Human Motivation,” refers to an interesting experiment carried out in the United States. A group of black students from Harlem was randomly taken and given an IQ test.

Also at random, 20 of them were told that they had scored high scores and that their performance was above the general average. The group was then handed over to a teacher, pointing out the peculiarities of these “great” youngsters. At the end of the year, all of these students performed better than the other young people who had been tested.

Of course, the initial test results were bogus. None of these young men showed superior abilities. In fact, some rated below average.

The point is that from experiments like this one it has been possible to conclude that if a child is considered intelligent and capable, and is treated expecting that he is competent, he will end up responding to that expectation.

Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. If someone is treated with suspicion and their abilities are mistrusted, they will probably be unable to become competent and successful. That’s what Pygmalion Syndrome is all about. It is expressed in an interesting way, through this sentence: “Whether you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you are right.”

The power of simulation

There are many cases of simulation that end up becoming reality. Situations have been documented in which people who pretend to be sick in order not to attend work end up dying from these supposedly imaginary illnesses. There is also the case of a prisoner who pretended to be crazy to avoid his conviction and ended up, effectively, losing his mind before being transferred to a sanatorium.

Juan Antonio Vallejo, in his book “Locos egregios”, offers this explanation in reference to the delusions that become reality: “What begins by simulating, as the individual has a previous anomalous psychic structure, becomes largely independent of his will , and the initially feigned symptoms follow a course that is regulated by unconscious mechanisms and no longer by the will of the patient ”.

This is applicable both to “anomalous” psychic structures, as well as to those that we consider “normal”. The strength of a conviction becomes so great that it takes shape through unconscious mechanisms and becomes true. It is at the base of the famous axiom: “A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth.”

Image courtesy of derfy.