The principle is simply this: We tend to get what we expect—both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less. This phenomenon was clearly manifest in a 1968 study by Dr. Robert Rosenthal in which teachers were told that, based on IQ testing, students in a control group were high achievers—though in fact they had been randomly assigned. When the students were tested several months later, the control group students performed measurably better than their peers. Higher teacher expectations of students had been translated into
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