Someone Who Never Gave Up on You

"I'm persistent and perseverant, but a key thing is my parents never gave up on me. Without their support, I would never have made it."
(from my tweets, 2015)

Most of my old tweets were about what I did: the hours, the books, the risks. This one was different. It gave credit to someone else.

Several months earlier, I had tweeted that wanting to be great "was something my mom instilled in me since I was really little, even though nobody else was saying that about me." And the day after this tweet, I added that the only way to survive the risks of trying something very ambitious is support from family.

Behind a lot of persistence, it turns out, is someone who believed in you first. Research suggests that being believed in can shape what we attempt, how long we keep going and how happy we are along the way.

Expectations can shape results

In a famous 1968 study, psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers at a California elementary school that certain students had been identified by a test as "intellectual bloomers," likely to make big gains that year. In reality, the students had been chosen at random.

By the end of the year, some of those students, especially the youngest, showed larger gains on IQ tests than their classmates. Rosenthal and Jacobson called this the Pygmalion effect: other people's expectations can help shape how we perform.

Later researchers have debated how strong the effect is. In a 2005 review, Lee Jussim and Kent Harber concluded that teacher expectations do affect students, but usually modestly, and that the effects tend to be larger for students who face stereotypes or other disadvantages. In other words, belief matters most for the people who get the least of it elsewhere.

High standards plus belief

A more recent study shows what helpful belief can look like. In 2014, David Yeager and colleagues asked middle-school teachers to write critical feedback on student essays. Before handing them back, the researchers attached one of two notes to each essay.

Half got a neutral note: "I'm giving you these comments so that you'll have feedback on your paper." The other half got this: "I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them."

Students who received the second note were much more likely to revise and resubmit their essays. The effect was especially strong for Black students, who may have had more reason to wonder whether criticism reflected bias. The message that mattered wasn't "you're already great." It was "I believe you can do this."

Support helps us thrive

Brooke Feeney and Nancy Collins, psychologists who study close relationships, argue that support does more than help us cope with hard times. In a 2015 review, they described how supportive relationships also help people thrive: take on new challenges, explore and grow.

They describe two kinds of support. One is a safe haven, someone to turn to when things go wrong. The other is a secure base, someone who encourages you to go out and try. My old tweets touch on both: family support as the way to survive big risks, and a mom who encouraged me to want to be great in the first place.

What the philosophers said

The German writer and thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put the idea memorably in his novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795–96). One character observes that if we take people as they are, we make them worse; but if we treat them as if they were what they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

It's an old insight with a modern echo in the research above. The way we see people can help them grow into who they might be.

Some honest caveats

The original Pygmalion study has been criticized for its methods, and later studies have found smaller and less consistent effects. The Yeager study was done in specific schools and needs to be replicated widely. And belief alone doesn't guarantee success. Plenty of people work hard with strong support and still face setbacks.

Also, not everyone has family who believed in them. For many people, that support comes from a teacher, a coach, a friend or a mentor instead. The research suggests the source matters less than the message.

How to give and receive belief

• Thank someone who believed in you. Tell them specifically what their support made possible.
• Be that person for someone else. Pair high standards with clear confidence: "I'm pushing you because I know you can do it."
• Be a safe haven and a secure base. Be there when things go wrong, and encourage people to try new things.
• Look beyond family if you need to. Find mentors, teachers or friends who see your potential.
• Believe in yourself too. Sometimes you have to start believing before anyone else does.

Today's reflection

Who believed in you before you had much to show for it? Have you told them what that meant to you?

Sources

• Feeney, B. C., & Collins, N. L. (2015). A new look at social support: A theoretical perspective on thriving through relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19(2), 113–147.
• Goethe, J. W. von. (1795–96). Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Book VIII.
• Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131–155.
• Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W. T., Williams, M. E., & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804–824.