8. Self-fulfilling Prophesy and the Placebo Effect www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect Read this article on “External Links”
9. The pole-vaulter experiment. In an experiment where pole vaulters were given mismarked heights that they believed were practice heights but were actually higher than their own personal best marks, it was discovered that most of the athletes cleared those heights because they believed they could do it from past performance.
10. “ How high can fleas jump?” If you place a few fleas in a glass jar you can safely predict they will jump straight out again. (You see, fleas are quite capable of jumping high. Fleas are the best jumpers in the insect world. They can jump eight to ten inches high, many times their own height.) Now, if you catch them, place them in the jar again and put a lid an amazing piece of behavior reprogramming begins. This time the fleas will learn that there is a limit to their freedom as they hit an obstacle, namely the lid, over and over. After a while you can take the lid off and you will discover to your amazement that the fleas keep jumping inside their 'prison' - just a little bit short of freedom. And, if you are not compassionate enough to tip them out, they will probably die within this 'safe space'. The fleas' ability to jump high did not change - but their willingness did. And that's what determines the difference. And this is pretty much the method of our own programming too, isn't it
11. Famous I.Q. Experiment In this field experiment, all the children in a primary school were used as subjects. Each grade, or year, was split into three streams (above average, average, and below average). The experimenters told the teachers at the school that they were going to administer an intelligence test that would determine which children would be academic "bloomers". These children would stand the greatest chance of becoming academically bright in the future. 20% of children in each of the 18 classes were chosen at random and labeled as bloomers . Their classroom teachers were told that these children were bloomers and therefore stood a good chance of becoming quite academic, when in fact, on average, the children would have been no different in academic ability than the rest of their classmates. After eight months the test was administered again to all of the children and the IQ gains were calculated . It was found that the children who had been labeled bloomers had significantly higher gains in IQ . The greatest gains were seen in the youngest children, grades one and two.
If you place a few fleas in a glass jar you can safely predict they will jump straight out again. (You see, fleas are quite capable of jumping high. Fleas are the best jumpers in the insect world. They can jump eight to ten inches high, many times their own height.) Now, if you catch them, place them in the jar again and put a lid an amazing piece of behavior reprogramming begins. This time the fleas will learn that there is a limit to their freedom as they hit an obstacle, namely the lid, over and over. After a while you can take the lid off and you will discover to your amazement that the fleas keep jumping inside their 'prison' - just a little bit short of freedom. And, if you are not compassionate enough to tip them out, they will probably die within this 'safe space'. The fleas' ability to jump high did not change - but their willingness did. And that's what determines the difference. And this is pretty much the method of our own programming too, isn't it?