For the practice TOK presentation, my group talked about how expectations factor into results. We used the real life situation of an experiment made to prove one of Einstein's theories. They made each machine involved with the expectation that the result was going to prove Einstein right, and, in the end, it did. You have to think that because they were working to prove Einstein, the scientists had some pretty high expectations. But, how much did their expectations factor into their work and the results? I honestly don't remember any discussion we had in class following this, but throughout this project, I thought about how much my expectations factor into my work and the outcome.If you don't know by now, I have very low expectations. If my expectations were ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd be at a negative infinity. And my expectations have only worsened as this year has continued, as well as my grades. My grades aren't in the trash bad (they are gettin there though), but they are not what I'm used to. Are my lowering expectations a causation for grades or do they just correlate? Or is it the other way around? Are my low grades a causation for my low expectations? I can't just up the ante and shoot for the stars when I can barely reach the top of a tree. In my head, I make the clear connection that if you don't start out with high hopes, you won't end with high hopes, but I am not completely sure if that's just one of those faux-positivity things that has been ingrained in my head or just my poor attempt of not being a pessimist. I, and many other people in this spiraling program of Purgatory, have gone into several assignments with high expectations for the outcome, only to be met with severe misery and sorrow. (I understand that expectations aren't the only preparation you should do for big tests and such, but most kids with high expectations aren't just moping around doing absolutely nothing, so let's just quietly assume that we were all good kids who studied.) As I write this, my mind goes straight to thinking that expectations can be both a correlation and causation, depending on how it effects you.
In an article titled, "How the Power of Expectations Can Allow You to Bend Reality," talks about placebo effects and positive thinking. Basically it says positive thinking can't fix a broken bone, but it can make you think that it's less broken than it actually is. In the article, they talk about an experiment where some the first group of track racers were told that "pre-race jitters" improved performance, while the second group were told it was detrimental. The first group performed better than the second group. The added pressure may have been responsible for their poor performance.
Performance quality correlates with expectations, obviously, but I don't know why our expectations usually erase facts in our mind. At least that's how I see it. The expectations cloud over the facts and statistics, but it can also be due to ignorance of not knowing what the facts are.
There is a lot going on in this response. I love your continued exploration of expectations as causal for performance outcomes in a few really well-developed examples. It's hard to take the placebo effect and apply it to your frustrations within IB, though. (Would you do better on the test if I said "thinking you are going to do bad on the test correlates with higher performance on the test"?)
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that maybe some of your frustration comes from not understanding or being uncertain of the OUTSIDE expectations? Like, if you think you are going to do real good, but then you do badly, that's reflective of a misalignment between what you think is required to do real good and what is actually required, right? That might be because you haven't done this sort of thing before, or it might be a breakdown in communication between you and your instructor that you should try to address.
I know you get a kick out of being kind of mopey, but I don't want you to feel an ongoing sense of frustration. I am confident that you will BE successful in this program, but it is at least as important that you FEEL successful in the program.