The Pygmalion Effect
The idea of
the self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. the Pygmalion Effect, was made famous by the
Irish writer Bernard Shaw in his play ‘Pygmalion’, later made even more
famous in the musical ‘My Fair Lady.’ An ordinary flower girl is turned into
an apparent princess, meaning that she’s perceived as a princess because she
behaves/acts like one. The
Pygmalion effect happens as the result of the installation of a positive
(i.e. Galatea) or negative (i.e. Golem) idea (package), meaning a specific,
because detailed, albeit virtual (i.e. imaginary = ‘pretend’) conviction
(rather than expectation more), elsewhere called a
dream, wish or imagined outcome to be made true/real. The
Pygmalion experiment: Round about 1967 the psychologist Robert Rosenthal gave children at
a US primary school a standard IQ test. Then he selected 20 % of the children
(about 5 per class) and told their teachers that they were potential academic
‘spurters’ who could be expected to achieve unusual intellectual gains in the
academic year. When all the children were retested at the end of the year it
was found that the selected children, particularly those in the lower grades,
demonstrated massive IQ increases vis-à-vis the other children, some up to 30
IQ points. Though the experiment was later rubbished on methodological
grounds, the basic result was clear. It had been demonstrated that
expectation (prophecy) could be realised (i.e. self-fulfilled). The
Pygmalion effect (i.e. the self-fulfilling prophecy) can only become a
reality if an idea (read: an imagined (= ‘pretend’), hence virtual outcome =
fact), is installed (and accepted) as (certain) conviction rather than as
open ended (hence uncertain) expectation. Once accept as true/certain the
brain transforms the ‘fact’ (i.e. the pretence wholly experienced) into an everyday
physical (meaning functional) reality by means of reality testing. It is
reality testing alone that makes a virtual reality (i.e. a pretence, such as
a dream a dream) real/true. Such reality testing happened at the great ball
in ‘My Fair Lady’ when Eliza proved her mental and physical transformation
into a princess. In other
words, for an idea (i.e. a positive virtual outcome, hence a prophesy
installed as (an absolutely certain) conviction) to become an actual reality
one’s Biological Navigation System or Bio-Nav, i.e.
one’s blind mental auto-pilot that operates entirely in a virtual or
‘pretend’ reality of its own making) needs to generate a change of direction
(goal, outcome, destination and so on). Once the Bio-Nav has decided (i.e. is
wholly convinced, hence certain (resulting in relaxation)) a new
destination/outcome, the Bio-Nav’s default function continually generates
‘probable next best steps’ towards the new outcome, namely to a particular change that is intended to
increase one’s survival capacity. By so doing it automatically activates the
production of chemicals that transmit its instructions to the physical base
(i.e. the body) to bring about the actual change of direction (or function)
required and that will make the virtual idea a reality. It (i.e. your
Bio-Nav, not you) has to work hard and persistently (so time has to made
available) to gradually make the (virtual) conviction (read: a quantised
expectation as prophecy = outcome) an everyday reality. The extent
to which a perfect health promising placebo, for instance, “FOREST BATHING cures my asthma!” or “This pill stops
the pain!” ,
can actually restore a bio-system to perfect health (meaning cruising speed
survival capacity) is not known. The fact that some very ill people can
produce (i.e. bootstrap themselves to)
total remission from their illness suggests that there is much work to be
done by medical practitioners (now generally called bio-plumbers). What’s a placebo
The Lourdes Enigma
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