It Sure Seems So!
Will an Army officer’s arbitrary opinion determine a soldier’s performance ?
Will the next U.S. President’s productivity be affected by what his cabinet believes about him? ?
Can a stereotype cause you to lose your hearing?
Click the links. According to the studies, the answer is unequivocably yes.
What we believe not only changes our behavior, but it can change the behavior of those we believe it about. It’s called the chameleon affect.
The Chameleon Effect
I’ve been reading about the ways people assign values to situations they encounter. The study, “Social Perception and Interpersonal Behavior: On the Self-Fulfilling Nature of Social Stereotypes,” is a great example of the Chameleon Effect.
Fifty male and fifty female students were recruited for a communication study. The women were simply told that they would be having a short telephone conversation with a randomly selected man.
The 50 male students were given biographical information and photo for the woman they would call. What the men didn’t know was that the photos were fake — half were of a beautiful woman, the other half were of a less attractive woman.
The men had time to review the photos and bios. Then they were asked to fill out an “Impression Formation Questionaire,” which had them rate their first impression about the person they were going to be calling. Regardless of the bio information, the beautiful women were expected to be “sociable, poised, humorous, and socially adept.” The less attractive women were perceived to be “unsociable, awkward, serious, and socially inept.”
The women knew nothing of this questionaire.
The researchers recorded the phone calls. Then they edited out the voices of the men. The edited versions were then played back for a third group of twelve ordinary people, who knew nothing about the study or the people who took part.
After listening to their voices, the jury was asked to rate the women using the same “Impression Formation Questionaire.” Based on the women’s voices alone, the jury attributed the same traits to the same groups of women — they matched the traits attributed to the fake photos by the men in the study.
The explanation? Once the men formed their opinion, every aspect of their conversation reflected their perception of the woman as they had the conversation on the telephone. The women gave the corresponding response to the “cues” the men were sending. [Sway, The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Braffman and Braffman]
I underscore that the women knew nothing of the photos, or the questionaire, or the impressions the men had formed of them, but the women still changed in response to the ideas the men had about them.
What Can We Do about the Chameleon Effect?
If we unconsciously live up to what other people telegraph, managing expectations takes on a more serious role in managing a career, a business, or a brand. What is a brand if not perceptions and expectations?
If expectations have the potential to change how we behave, how can we keep aware and unhurt by this effect?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Images: sxc.hu
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Related:
Diagnostic Bias: Are Your Jeans In Your Marketing Plan?
Liz –
This is absolutely fascinating and it could explain so much!
It also makes me think about the fact that I’ve noticed often people react to you (me, everyone) differently based on who you’re with when you meet them. Kind of like being judged by the company you keep.
Great stuff!
Ann
Tricky one, Liz
Since I run a business that is typical regarded as a ‘men’s – trade’ (wooden flooring), does that mean prospects and clients regard me more as ‘the assistant’ or ‘office-girl’ and had hoped to meet the ‘man around the house’?
Or does it work to our advantage that ‘even’ the ‘woman in the shop’ knowns everything about the product, installation methods etc?
Or…. is our whole based on giving professional advice to anyone looking for wooden flooring responsible for the expectation we do live up too?
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Oops, must be one of those Pestering Critters moments again on your blog Liz?
Hi Ann,
I know. The entire concept of how we’re swayed irrationally is fascinating and worth study. It’s capture my attention in a very big way. I’ve noticed that same difference in how people respond.
Hi Karin,
I don’t know what expectations your customers bring, but I’m sure you’ve had to deal with some of those things or you wouldn’t know what to list here. We arbitrarily assign values to organize what we see. The world would be overwhelming if we didn’t. The question how do we get people to assign the values we need them to?
By being authentic I guess, both in presentation (paper, web, phone, face to face) as in execution.
Perhaps not even related but ‘perceived’ value has a lot to do with it too IMHO.
Karin H.
I know I’m not immune to this. I find myself far more capable of rational talk if I feel the other person will respect that. Heck, my English suffers when talking or even e-mailing with Russians whose English isn’t great. This mirroring thing is sometimes a real drag.
Though indeed very interesting, I wonder how you and others would modify your takes if you stepped back, and thought about the self image factor.
I doubt seriously, in fact it’s humorous for me to think you’d be affected by some guy treating you one way or the other. Your self image is so well grounded, a guy talking to you as if you were an uneducated, socially inept boob, wouldn’t change how you responded. In fact, I strongly suspect you’d begin having fun with the guy, the same way a cat plays with a doomed mouse. (Actually you’re too Kumbaya to do that. I was probably projecting there.) 🙂
A strong woman is a strong woman no matter what the expectations are of the male on the other end of the line. Having been raised by a family silly with them, I can personally attest to the flaw in the scientists’ analysis, IMHO.
I dare ’em to try that with my Aunt Evie. 🙂
I had chameleons as pets when I was a kid, because I thought they were the coolest things ever. I learned young, the very very hard way, that blending in and being what other people wanted me to be equaled survival. I like to think that, personally, I’ve outgrown that skin a little bit, that I don’t care what people see me as anymore.
Professionally, however, I like people to see me as the best. (That part of my childhood hasn’t worn off yet.) I am thrilled when I get calls from strangers and their voicemails starts out with “So and so told me you’re the best…” I have one client who calls me Yoda and another who calls me Wonder Woman. So I think my clients like me well enough. What I am curious about sometimes is what total strangers (prospective clients) who haven’t heard anything about me from anyone who knows how great I am (hehe) thinks of me. Those people are probably scared out of their minds, at least if they follow me on twitter. Something to think about… someday. 🙂
In his book The Power of Intention, Dr. Wayne Dyer writes how one person of high energy — like the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr — can change the energy of those around them powerfully, elevating them as well. When we radiate a certain respect and appreciation for others that comes from a good and grounded heart, people around us change. We are all connected.
I think by radiating our own unique “power” out into the world, we are less affected by others’ perceptions. This requires lessening our own feelings of insecurity, because a lowered sense of self makes us more malleable.
Hi Katinka!
Yeah, I would suspect that’s how conversations that start with one person too invested can escalate into incredible into horrible arguments or dialogues that can find no resolution.
Wow — this insight is deep and so useful Liz. It’s also cool how deeply it links to what we now know about the human brain. What a great post that would make:-) Thanks for the insight – I plan to think about it more!
Hi BawldGuy,
Nope it’s not that easy. Check the links. The same thing happens when drill sergeants think things about their soldiers and bosses perceptions about performance. The new soldiers and the new employees worked to their leaders expectations without realizing it.
Liz — Remaining Devil’s Advocate here, does that mean the soldier’s free choice to be who he really is, is overridden by sergeant’s decision about who he is?
Not sayin’ we’re all not at least a little vulnerable to this. It’s just that if someone thinks I’m A but I’m really B, I’ll continue to act as a B.
Example: What affect would someone have assuming erroneously I’m a Kumbaya type? Would my behavior then meet his expectation?
The results of this experiment are what they are. Very confusing though. Takes away free thinking/choice. Scary thought indeed.
Hi BawldGuy,
What happened was the military leaders were given arbitrary rating for each soldier that they didn’t know were arbitrary performance expectations based on bogus facts. The soldiers didn’t know the ratings existed. At the end of the training. Soldiers went through the same test all soldiers take. Their results matched up to the bogus / arbitrary performance expectations. When the military leaders where told that the performance expectations were made up, they argued for their beliefs using the test as proof. Circular logic. They had actually constructed circumstances in which the soldiers performed to their expectations.
Basketball players get time on the court based on their coaches expectations — it directly correlated to their draft pick . . . not their performance.
Hi Ellen,
Yeah, more to come on this. 🙂
Reminds me of Grandma, who said the higher the expectation the higher the achievement. Where’s Rod Serling when you need him?
Liz,
I would love to see this experiment repeated with the women’s photos switched (so the women who had been previously perceived as beautiful would now be perceived as less-attractive and vice versa). Of course, the new version of the experiment would require different male participants.
I believe that would be a great way to tell whether it was in fact the men’s responses to their perceptions of the women that caused the women to react as they did. (In other words, would the women, who now are perceived as either more or less attractive than they were the first time, actually react in the opposite manner this time around? If so, that would tend to validate the initial results. If not, it would seem to indicate that these women’s reactions were more internally motivated.)
Fascinating topic!
Jeanne
Hi BawldGuy,
Grandma was right again. 🙂
Hi Jeanne,
The telling moment for me was that jury perceived the women’s voices the way the men perceived the pictures. Hmmm. That match seems to say everything to me.
Liz, your post brought to mind an article I like to read reread every now and then.
Written by Sharon Begley for the Wall Street Journal, it talks about how expectations alter outcomes for more than we realize.
http://www.charleswarner.us/articles/WSJExpectations.htm
“The size of the expectation effect varies, but is always statistically significant, and sometimes big. For teachers, high expectations can raise student performance 30%. For rats, they can improve maze learning 65%.”
What if we’re the ones who set our own high expectations so that other people can pick up on them? Just a thought . . .
Fascinating posting and ensuing discussion.
I also loved the post on the violin and jeans. Keep up the great blogging.
Yes, fascinating, isn’t it? And it would be still more fascinating if that match recurred in the second phase of the experiment, when the men perceived the women in the opposite way.
I tend to see a kind of Pygmalion effect occurring here, in addition to the Chameleon effect, since the menââ¬â¢s actions toward the women amounted to self-fulfilling prophesies which caused the women to act out the menââ¬â¢s expectations.
The implications of these findings are huge, because, as you say, they do present a challenge to us in our businesses, careers, and lives in general. On the one hand, when we have the good fortune to be involved with exceptional people who demonstrate faith in our abilities and great expectations for us, that positive atmosphere can have the fantastic effect of increasing our confidence and spurring us on to success. But, on the other hand, when the people in our immediate sphere of influence look down on us, project doubts about our competence, or fail to see any potential in us, the negative atmosphere they create can be devastating to our self-confidence and block us from achieving our goals.
Perhaps the answer lies in our ability to engage in realistic self-assessment, to recognize our strengths and accept our weaknesses with grace (even while we work to change those weaknesses into strengths), to be our own cheering section, and to give up the idea that we need to be perfect to be successful–or to have value. The stronger we become, the weaker the effect of other peopleââ¬â¢s expectations–at least their negative ones–will be in our lives.
Hi Barbara, Yeah, people do live up to expectations. I think you’re right we need to all raise ours for ourselves and each other.
What fascinates me is how some look at this as a sort of zero sum scenario. Either you subscribe to others’ expectations, or you completely control your own mind/behavior via your own conscious thought process.
I’m thinkin’ they exist together, forever intertwined — but our ability to choose trumps all.
For example, someone demonstrates expectations of my behavior in a specific social situation. I can choose to live up to them or behave according to my own expectations/standards.
This becomes more interesting at every turn.
Hye BawldGuy,
My thought is that if we’re away that people do some of these unconscious things, then we’ll be even more able to follow our own expectations and filter out the unwanted responses that work against us. Yeah. 🙂
I’ve been playing with this for a little while now.
As I coach people (32 presentations a day!), I sometimes play a game of seeing them enormously successful in the future, and ‘Here I am right at the beginning…’
Not taking responsibility for their success, but allowing me to see their potential.
Something magical happens as you hold people in this kind of unconditional positive regard.
Hi Andrew!
Something magical happens as you hold people in this kind of unconditional positive regard.
Yeah, I know. It changes a person’s perception of the world. 🙂
From what Iââ¬â¢ve read in Psychology textbooks and articles, we need to categorize things to keep them straight in our head. We categorize things from our past experiences; so when the guys saw pics of pretty girls, they remembered from past experience that the pretty girls theyââ¬â¢ve interacted with were sociable and humorous, etc. and vice versa for the not-so-pretty girls. I think your comment asking ââ¬ÅThe question how do we get people to assign the values we need them to?ââ¬Â is right on target. Thatââ¬â¢s the whole idea of branding ââ¬â how do we get people to perceive us as we want to be perceived?
Does the chameleon effect have any bearing on the balance of power in a marriage, I wonder…
Hi Tom!
How could it NOT have an effect?
This can be overridden, but it’s tough, and can be time consuming. Takes rock solid inner game.
Personal experience: On my first session with my undergraduate advisor in college, who hadn’t ever met me before, started yelling at me about my choice of community college over his program (I didn’t have a choice, that university wouldn’t let me attend in-state after being honorably discharged from USMC after Gulf War.) He was shouting!
I just let it go. Ended graduating with honors. Then changed majors for grad school.
Perhaps there was a reason he retired as an associate professor after all.
Well said, Dave, “a rock solid inner game.”
I agree that the best response is to hold tight to what drives you with determination and not let anyone move you off your direction.
Eventually those who are true and trusting will see what’s real and what’s not.