How Other People’s Expectations Control Us

Conclusion (Via PsyBlog)

“We quickly sense how others view us and play up to these expectations.”

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Introduction (Via PsyBlog)

A good exercise for learning about yourself is to think about how other people might view you in different ways. Consider how your family, your work colleagues or your partner think of you.

Now here’s an interesting question: to what extent do you play up to these expectations about how they view you?

This idea that other people’s expectations about us directly affect how we behave was examined in a classic social psychology study carried out by Dr Mark Snyder from the University of Minnesota and colleagues (Snyder et al., 1977). They had a hunch that people automatically sense how others view them and immediately start exhibiting the expected behaviours.

Additional Excerpt (Via PsyBlog)

Understanding that other people’s expectations about us directly and immediately affect our behaviour is a vital component in understanding how we can come to be quite different people across various social situations.

I leave you with one final thought: in the real world two people are influencing each other continuously, trying to live up (or down) to each other’s expectations. Of course we only have direct control over our own expectations of others, so one implication of this study is that by changing our expectations of others we can actually change their behaviour for worse or, should we choose, for the better.

The effect may be subtle, but it’s a powerful realisation that other people’s behaviour is partly derived from how we view them, just as our behaviour is partly derived from how others view us.

Click Here To Read: How Other People’s Expectations Control Us