Aphrodite, moved by Pygmalion’s obsession with the statue, comes to his rescue and brings it to life. The playwright George Bernard Shaw adapted the story to a more modern setting and Shaw’s version, in turn, served as the basis for the stage and film musical My Fair Lady. In this version, Henry Higgins (Pygmalion) seeks to transform an unsophisticated flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, into a refined, well-spoken lady. The play illustrates the principle that we live up to labels.
We, like Eliza Doolittle, learn to act like the people others perceive us to be. If, for example, a parent tells a child that he or she cannot do anything right, the child will soon incorporate this idea into his or her self-concept and fail at most of the tasks he or she attempts. In contrast, if a parent repeatedly demonstrates to a child that he or she is lovable or capable, the child will probably live up to the expectation.37
Real-Life Examples
A real-life example of the startling effects of self-fulfilling prophecies can be seen in a recent study involving students and their teachers. Research revealed that African American students were more than three times as likely to be suspended or receive detention for bad behavior as were their White peers, leading the African American students to conclude that the deck was stacked against them. They lost trust in their teachers, and their negative attitudes became a self-fulfilling prophecy that continued to fuel their falling behind, acting out, and being suspended. Experimenters instituted an intervention to see if they might break the vicious cycle by teaching the teachers to empathize with their students. They had teachers read stories about how students learning to navigate the world might look like disobedience but was really the normal process of testing new identities. They taught the teachers how to build rapport. They also let them know what they and their students shared in common—even something as simple as a birthday—so that stronger relationships between teachers and students might form. They did. The change in the teachers’ understanding and knowledge led them to listen to their students rather than rush to suspend or discipline them. Students ended up earning better grades because they felt more respected and valued. They discovered that their voices mattered. The students also developed more respect for their teachers.38
The Galatea Effect
What about the messages you send yourself? A variation of the Pygmalion effect is the Galatea effect (Galatea is the name Pygmalion gave his statue once it was brought to life), which refers to the expectations we have for ourselves, rather than the ones others have for us. We react to the internal messages that we continually send to ourselves. Our feelings about our competence and abilities influence our behavior in much the same way that our performance can be influenced by others’ high or low expectations for us. Thus, our answer to the question “Who are you?” affects how we behave.
How to Enhance Self-Awareness
To enhance our communication abilities, we need to use ourselves as a resource. By becoming more aware of how we perceive ourselves, and more sensitive to our own thoughts and feelings, we also become more adept at presenting ourselves to others.
Identify Life Scripts
Self-understanding is the basis of self-concept. To understand yourself, you must understand how you operate in the world. Psychiatrist Eric Berne believes that we enact identity scripts—the rules for living we learned while growing up that spell out our roles and how to play them.39 Berne finds that we are apt to pattern our interactions in such a way that we repeatedly enact the same script but with different sets of players. We might, for example, repeatedly enact life scenes in which we express the belief that others are out to get us, or that they are jealous of us. This urge to repeat these scripts becomes a problem when doing so causes us to fail.
The remedy is to become aware of the scripts we enact, identify those that are unproductive, and rewrite them. Once we are in control of the scripts we use, taking part as an active player, we put ourselves in a better position to script our own lives.
Use the Johari Window
At one time or another, we all wish that we knew ourselves and others better. The concept of self-awareness, so basic to all functions and forms of communication, can be explored through a psychological testing device known as the Johari window. Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham developed an illustration of a paned window to help us examine both how we view ourselves and how others view us (Figure 3.5).40
Figure 3.5
Pane I, the open area, represents information about yourself that is known to you and another. For example, your name, age, religious affiliation, and food preferences might all be found in this window pane. The size and contents of this quadrant vary from one relationship to another, depending on the degree of closeness you share with the other person. Which people do you allow to know more about you than others?
Pane II, the blind area, contains information about you that others, but not you, are aware of. Some people have very large blind areas, because they are oblivious to their own faults or virtues. At times, people may feel it necessary to seek outside help or therapy to reduce the size of their blind areas. Do you know something about a friend that he or she does not know?
Pane III, the hidden area, represents your hidden self. It contains information you know about yourself but do not want others to find out for fear they will reject you. Sometimes, it takes a great deal of effort to conceal aspects of yourself from others. At one time or another, each of us probably feels a need to have people important to us know and accept us for who we are.
When we move information from Pane III to Pane I, we engage in the process of self-disclosure. Self-disclosure occurs when we purposely reveal to another something about ourselves that he or she would not otherwise know about us. This does not suggest that the hidden area should not be allowed to exist within each of us. It is up to each of us to decide when it is appropriate for us to share our innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions with others. It is also up to each of us to decide when complete openness or transparency is not in our best interest.
Pane IV of the Johari window is the unknown area in your makeup. It contains information of which neither you nor others are aware. Eventually, education and life experience may help bring some of the mysteries of this pane to the surface. Only then will its contents be available for examination. Have you ever done something that surprised both you and those close to you? Did you and a friend ever exclaim together, “Wow! I didn’t know I felt that way!” or “I didn’t know you could do that!”?
Interpersonal Styles in the Johari Window
People become known for their interpersonal style—a consistent and preferred way of behaving. Figure 3.6 illustrates four representative interpersonal styles. Style A is characteristic of those of us who adopt a fairly impersonal approach to interpersonal relationships. Dominated by their unknown areas, these individuals usually withdraw from contacts, avoid personal disclosures or involvements, and thus project an image that is rigid, aloof, and uncommunicative. In Style B, the hidden area is the dominant pane. Here we find people who desire relationships but also greatly fear exposure and generally mistrust others. Once others become aware of the façade such people erect, they are likely to lose trust in them. Style C is dominated by the blind area. People with this style are overly confident of their own opinions and painfully unaware of how they affect or are perceived by others. Those who communicate with them often feel that their own
