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How important is Self Belief for our achievements? I had no idea of its utmost importance before I did this amazing experiment in my Psychology classroom.
Back when I was studying Psychology for my graduate degree in college, I was extremely lucky to have a professor who believed in showing rather than telling. He would deliver lectures not just on topics within the syllabus, but also discuss newer theories being proposed in different parts of the world. Occasionally, he would turn our usual lecture room ( since my college did not have a separate designated Psychology lab) into set-ups for interesting experiments into the human mind.
The tall and bulky, but extremely soft-spoken professor, would explain a certain concept one day and in order to prove or disprove the theory, ask us to gather human subjects for the related experiment the next day.
So we would go around the campus, collecting human specimens for our experiments. 🙂
Friends, of course, always obliged. As did friends of friends.
Out of all the psychological theories that we studied in this absorbing way, I have never been able to take one out of my mind.
Albert Bandura’s theory of Self-Efficacy.
What is self-efficacy?
Simply put, Self-Efficacy is a person’s belief in their own competence.
In other words – Self-belief.
Bandura proposed that self-belief can be influenced , increased and decreased by different factors like peer and social praise (for increasing) and fear, shame and blame (for decreasing) etc.
The Totally Eye-Opening Experiment that we conducted on the topic of self belief –
We gathered around as subjects, 4 girls of almost the same age and physique.
Inside the lecture room we had already placed one weight lifting rod weighing 20 kg.
Before each subject entered the room, she was asked – “Do you think you are capable of lifting a 20 kg rod above your head?” – and their answer was recorded on paper.
The result of the experiment stumped us!!
It went like this –
Answers before lifting weights = 2 (yes) 1 (no) 1 (don’t know)
Result :
The 2 girls who said ‘yes’, could lift the 20 kg weight above their head. The other two could not!
Their self-confidence before the experiment was a clear measure of their self-belief.
The two ‘successful’ girls were, pointedly, not praised for their performance.
Instead, our class, comprising 20 students, spoke to them (somewhat melodramatically) like this – “ We don’t think that your technique of lifting the rod was right. Besides, y’know what, this is nothing! Before you, there have been girls who lifted up to even 40 kg quite easily. We actually kind of expected this result. It is pretty ok, sort of.”
And then a short while later, they were asked to lift the 20 kg rod once again.
Our jaws dropped when there, in front of our very eyes, the same girls who, just minutes ago, had effortlessly lifted those weights, struggled to lift the rod above their heads!
The same girls. The same weight. But a different result!
Our ruthless comparison and lack of praise proved detrimental for their next effort.
The story doesn’t end here.
The 20 odd students then turned their attention to the other 2 ‘failed’ subjects.
They were wildly cheered on, smiled at, backs patted and addressed so – “ Wow! Aren’t you amazing or what? No girl before you could lift the bar more than 4 inches from the ground. You did far better than any of them. We are sure if you could try again, you will definitely do better.”
And they too were once again asked to give the rod a second try.
And guess what!
Out of the two ‘failed’ girls, one lifted the rod successfully till her shoulders while the second one did much better than earlier by several inches more!
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It was a pretty small experiment. The conditions were technically not tightly controlled. But the results were loud and clear for everyone.
We talked about it animatedly for days afterwards.
Albert Bandura’s theory of Self-Efficacy had been proved right by a bunch of rookie psychologists of Punjab. 🙂
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