Pandora Effect

There is an ancient Greek myth that Zeus gave a maid named Pandora a box and told her never to open it. "Why can't it be opened? And it has to be 'absolutely'?" Pandora felt more and more strange the more she thought about it. After holding it in for a while, she finally couldn't help but open the box. Unexpectedly, the box contained all the sins of mankind. After being opened by Pandora, they all ran away to the world. In psychology, this phenomenon of "the more you can't help but do something, the more you can't help it, the more you do it" is called the "Pandora effect". The "Pandora Effect" is different from other types of rebellious psychology. It mainly stems from people's curiosity mechanism. People tend to prefer something that is prohibited. If there is no sufficient reason for the prohibition that is acceptable to people, then this prohibition will often induce people to become curious and trigger a reflex of inquiry. This is the forbidden fruit rebelliousness.

The "Pandora Effect" also exists in our daily teaching. For example, the more books students are prohibited from reading, the more students want to read them; the more activities students are prohibited from participating in, the more students want to participate, etc.

Case: Students dressed in strange clothes.

The threshold effect

The so-called "threshold effect" refers to: once a person accepts a small request from others, if the other person makes a new request on this basis, If there is a high requirement, then this person will tend to accept this higher requirement in order to achieve cognitive unity or to leave a consistent impression on others, which is also called the "cascading effect".

Social psychologist Friedman conducted an experiment in 1966 to verify the "threshold effect." The first step in the study was to go to each house and make a small request to the housewife subjects, asking them to support the work of the "Safety Committee" and sign a petition calling for safe driving. In the second step of the study, two weeks later, the original two college experimenters found the housewives again and asked if they could put up a large, unsightly sign in their front yard that said "Drive Carefully." The results showed that the majority (more than 55) of those who had previously signed the petition agreed to erect the sign, while less than 17 of the housewives in the same situation who had not signed accepted the request.

Many teachers may have used the "threshold effect" to regulate students' behavior in their teaching work, but it is not so easy to implement it appropriately. First of all, the rationality of this small request must be considered to make it acceptable and tolerated by students; secondly, the time between each request cannot be too close, so as not to give students the feeling of "excessive"; finally, be sure to respond to each request. Every requirement must be strictly implemented and carefully inspected to ensure that higher requirements are implemented.

The Rosenthal Effect

In ancient times, Pygmalion, the prince of Cyprus, loved sculptures. One day, he successfully created the image of a beautiful woman. He couldn't put it down and looked at it with affectionate eyes every day. As he watched, the beauty came to life. Although this is a myth, psychologists have gained great inspiration from it.

In 1968, Rosenthal, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, and others randomly selected primary school students in grades one to six from 18 classes in a school and used intelligence tests to identify them. The researchers then gave the students' teachers a list and told the school that they had discovered through a test that there were several gifted students in the school, but they had not yet shown it in their studies. In fact, these are a few people randomly selected from the list of students. Interestingly, in tests at the end of the school year, these students did perform much better than other students. Researchers believe that this is due to the influence of teachers' expectations. Because the teacher believes that this student is a genius, he places greater expectations on him, gives him more attention during class, and conveys to him the message "you are excellent" through various methods. The student feels the teacher's attention and thus produces A motivating effect to work harder when studying and thus achieve good results.

Contrary to this experiment, research on juvenile delinquents shows that one of the reasons why many children become juvenile delinquents is the influence of negative expectations.

Because of the mistakes they made occasionally when they were young, they were labeled as "bad boys" by themselves, their families or teachers. This negative expectation guides the children and makes them increasingly believe that they are "bad boys". Eventually leading to the abyss of crime.

Rosenthal’s experiment tells us: In the entire process of education, how much students need practical and positive expectations from teachers. When students feel the teacher's expectations of themselves, they will develop or strengthen their desire to learn well, their upward ambition, and their motivation to study diligently. Moreover, under normal circumstances, every student has the possibility of development and success. Teachers must love every student they deal with, especially poor students, and ignite the fire of hope in their hearts.

Barnum Effect

A psychologist did an interesting experiment: He placed an advertisement in a newspaper, claiming that he was an astrologer and could remotely detect everyone he did not know. the character of the person. After being widely advertised, letters came pouring in. The psychologist sent out hundreds of telemetry reviews based on letters from readers. More than 200 people wrote back to thank him, praising his accuracy and effectiveness of telemetry. Unexpectedly, the psychologist sent a standard answer with exactly the same content: "You really need to be praised by others, and hope to be liked and appreciated, but not everyone treats you like this; you have a rich imagination, There are many beautiful ideals, including some fantasy that are divorced from reality; you want to accomplish many things, and the potential contained in you is endless, but in comparison, not many have been exerted; under certain circumstances, you will have You may be troubled, even hesitant and wavering, but at the critical moment, your will is still unswerving..." How could such a comment not be "effective"? Because who doesn’t want to be liked and appreciated? Who doesn’t have beautiful visions? Who can say that they have reached their full potential? So, this is a comment that applies to almost anyone and everyone will be happy to accept it. Psychologists call the phenomenon of people's willingness to accept such generalized personality descriptions the "Barnum effect."

The inspiration of the "Barnum Effect" to educational work is: every student, no matter how bad he is in the past and now, always has some upward thoughts deep in his heart. Sometimes, envying the success of others is often a psychological reflection of self-demanding progress. The teacher's responsibility is to ignite the fire of hope buried deep in the students' hearts and discover their potential energy. Therefore, when teachers evaluate students, they must insist on dividing them into two parts. Even the worst student must be good at trying to find his shining points.