The Effects of Living Up or Down to Expectations

"We need the opposite of Judging, Assuming and Marginalizing One another..." – Dr. Wayne Dyer

In one of Dr. Wayne Dyer's bestselling books, he tells the story about how outside forces can limit our abilities.

In the 1960’s, a teacher was given a roster showing the actual I.Q. test scores of the students of one class, and for another class a roster in which the I.Q. column had been (mistakenly) filled in with the students' locker numbers. When the rosters were posted at the beginning of the semester, the teacher assumed that the locker numbers were the actual I.Q.s of the students. After a year, it was discovered that in the class the students with the actual IQ scores that were high had performed better than those with low ones. But in the second class, the students with higher locker numbers scored significantly higher than those with lower locker numbers!

This example says a lot about individual potential and how what you believe can affect who you become. WOW, if locker numbers can foster that affect, don't you think that we should back off and not expect perfection and only expect goodness and success from each other?