A note: I am not actually claiming that the titular issue is resolved. This is a method of introducing a topic for debate, not a declaration of victory.
Anyway, my theory is simple: if you want people to behave a certain way, treat them as if they are behaving that way. If you want teenagers to be responsible and mature, treat them like adults. If you want your boyfriend to cherish you, treat him like he already does.
I don’t have any direct cites that this is the people work. I have seen a room full of young teenagers display amazing disclipline while in the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps, only to break down into temper tantrums when in high school. I can also bring up the Stanford prisoner experiments, but that is not directly relavent to what I am claiming.
Children who grow up in an atmosphere of respect and civility USUALLY turn in to respectful, civil adults. But not always.
Many a teenager has been dealt with as an adult and has still succumbed to temptation and behaved foolishly. Happens all the time.
People treated as if they are trustworthy and hard-working USUALLY act that way. But some will take advantage of your trust, cheat you, and play you for a sucker.
Many people will react in kind to sweetness and affection. A certain number will take this as affirming their own self-importance, and will be abusive and controlling.
At the risk of sounding racist Jews win 38% of nobel prizes in economics even though they only make up 0.25% of the world’s population. In fact Jews win more prizes in economics than they do for other fields as a percentage of the world’s total. This may be tied into the stereotype of jews as money hungry.
While I agree this plays a role, you can’t ignore genetics or personal experience that has taken place or will take place outside the realm of the person trying to manipulated the other person.
So in conclusion, it plays a role but just one of many.
There was a study that helps confirm the thesis that people act as expected. A group of Asian American women were split into three groups. All were given math tests, and a questionnaire.
The test was identical, but the first group’s questionnaire asked questions about the participant’s gender and gender related issues, implying this test was some kind of gender based test. (The stereotype being women are bad at math).
The second group’s questionnaire was focused on ethnicity, implying that this test was about race, playing on the stereotype that asians are good at math. The third group’s questionnaire was neutral on both issues.
The asian focused test group did the best, and the women focused group did the worst, with the only difference being that the asian focused group thought they were expected to do well, while the women focused group thought they were expected to do poorly
In my experience, teenagers who have been in a constrictive environment (where they’re ordered around a lot, like a high school with lots of rules), when taken out of that environment, can be mature–if they are separated from each other, and are surrounded by adults. But if they are grouped together, even if you treat them as adults, they degenerate into immaturity. I’m talking about urban U.S. teenagers. It could be some kind of peer pressure; no one wants to “break away from the pack.”
I don’t think OP’s question can be answered outright. There are too many variables–age, culture, social context.
You’re never going to get 100% with observations like this, but as a general rule, I concur. As a teacher I see it all the time: treat students like you expect them to excel, and the majority of them will excel. I teach college-level classes to non-college-level kids all the time. They surprise themselves every year with their accomplishments. Objective tests or subjective evaluations…they bloom if you expect them to.
Lissa’s reference to labeling gives me pause to think: do the state websites which publish–for easy internet access to all–the names, photographs, addresses and convictions of paedophiles/child abusers help or hinder them to reform? I mean, they know that everyone in the neighborhood sees them as a sexual deviant. Does this labeling make it easier or harder for them to prevent their own recidivism?
I wonder if labeling theory is behind things like The power of your subconscious mind or other books by Joseph Murphy, Norman Vincent Peale, etc which say using your subconscious mind helps you reform yourself. It sounds like a self imposed self fulfilling prophecy instead of an outside imposed one.
In circling back to the quoted statement and to the OP. While I suspect the choice of the word “people” as opposed to “a person” is unintentional in these posts, I believe it is significant in understanding the issue. While an individual may not consistently and predictably respond to expectations, IMHO a group will tend to respond in a way that is measurable to expectations. Like the studies referenced above (and discussion in another thread about economics) we are best served to think of the behavior tendancy of populations, rather than of individuals.