To Flirt With A Stranger, Press 1
Philosophy says we are what we wish to be. Psychology says we are what others wish us to be!
When others mark us or brand us in a certain way, we take on those characteristics ourselves, say psychologists. In other words, we start to mirror their expectations and begin to personify their diagnosis. It’s termed the Pygmalion Effect.
If random strangers think that you would be sociable, poised, humorous and socially adept, it is likely that you will portray yourself that way. On the contrary, if they don’t think you’re going to fit those characteristics, you probably won’t.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Not after reading about a fascinating experiment conducted by psychologists.
Researchers gathered 51 women who were told they were part of a study on communication. They were told they would have a short telephone conversation with a randomly selected man who would be calling them.
The men on the other end of the line were also told they were part of a study on communication. But unlike the women, the men were given a brief write-up about the woman they were going to talk to and also their photograph.
What the men and women didn’t know was that the study had nothing to do with communication and they were just rats in a psychological experiment.
The write-ups about women were accurate. Their photographs were not. Half of the men were given photographs of pretty women while the rest received photographs of average-looking women.
The women, on the other hand, had no idea that the men had been shown pictures of them – real or otherwise.
After looking at the photograph and reading the write-up about the women, they were asked to fill a questionnaire – Impression Formation Questionnaire – which asked them to rate their expectations of the women they were supposed to speak to.
Regardless of what the write-ups said, men who saw pictures of pretty women expected to interact with sociable, poised, humorous and socially adept women.
The other group of men – the ones who thought they would be talking to less attractive partners thought the women would be unsociable, awkward, serious and socially inept.
After filling the questionnaire, the men called and spoke to the women. This is when the experiment really began!
When men called, the women simply engaged in casual chitchat. What was interesting was not what they spoke about. But the biases the men brought into their phone conversations.
The researchers recorded each of the calls and then edited out the men’s side of the conversations. The resulting clips, containing only the women’s voices, were played to a third, independent group of twelve ordinary people who knew nothing at all about the study and had never met any of the other participants.
These twelve people were asked to evaluate each woman, after listening to their side of the conversation, using the same Impression Formation Questionnaire the men had filled out earlier.
Guess what they wrote?
They attributed the same traits to the women based on their voices alone that the men had attributed to them based on their fake photographs.
Do you realize what’s happening?
Once men formed an opinion about the women they were going to speak to, it affected the way they spoke with the women. If the men felt the women were attractive, he sounded more energetic, listened more intently and immersed himself more in the conversation.
And the women on the other end of the line couldn’t help but react in the same manner. They didn’t realize it but they were taking on the very characteristics that the men were expecting them to have.
Being thought of as beautiful made the women actually think of themselves as beautiful and exhibit beauty in their conversations. And vice versa!
What had initially been reality in the minds of the men had now become reality in the behaviour of the women! Imagine how wonderful the world would be if only teachers see students this way. Bosses see their staff in this manner. And spouses see each other in this regard!