Expectations

Our expectations shape our experience of reality far more powerfully than objective circumstances do. We often feel what we expect to feel, not what is actually there.

• Wine tastes better from an expensive bottle — blind taste tests consistently show that price expectation alters the perceived taste, not just the reported preference.
• Placebo surgery: patients who receive fake knee operations report the same improvements as those who had real procedures — expectation healed them.
• Students whose teachers were told they were 'late bloomers' showed measurable IQ gains — the teacher's changed expectations changed the students' outcomes.