Hey there, Creator! I am Kenzi Wood. Thanks for tuning in, and welcome if you're new to this corner of the internet. I never take your time and attention for granted, and I'm grateful you're here.
TL;DR
The Pygmalion effect shows that higher expectations lead to higher performance.
Creators who assume their audience is thoughtful and emotionally capable tend to get deeper engagement. This works because expectations change how you speak, design, and respond.
The effect fades over time, so you need intentional, non-cringey ways to reinforce it.
✅ The quick answer: Raise your expectations before you raise your output. Write one level smarter than “safe,” ask questions that assume thoughtfulness, reward depth publicly, and build continuity.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: your audience is smarter than you probably give them credit for. Not because you’re a bad creator, but because most creators are taught to design for distraction, not depth.
But what if the real limiter isn’t your audience’s attention span, but your expectations of them?🤔
It sounds a little woo-woo, but what you believe about your audience shapes how you create content for them. And your followers aren’t stupid; they can pick up on these subconscious expectations.
When you assume they won’t read, you write shorter posts. When you assume they won’t care, you stay surface-level. When you assume they won’t engage, you stop inviting them to. And they rise-or sink-to meet that bar you set.
There’s a name for this in psychology: the Pygmalion effect. Higher expectations lead to higher performance. Lower ones quietly cap what’s possible.
Today, we’ll unpack:
Where the Pygmalion effect comes from (Greek myths included 🏺)
Why it applies just as much to creators as it does to classrooms
How believing your audience is capable of real connection changes the way they show up
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What is the Pygmalion effect (and why should creators care)?
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to improved performance, and lower expectations lead to worse outcomes.
In other words: Expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies.🔮
The term comes from a Greek myth about Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell so deeply in love with a statue he created that it eventually came to life. (Sidebar: This is also the myth that inspired My Fair Lady.💃)
The concept really took off in the 1960s, when psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson studied how teachers’ expectations affected student performance. Teachers were told certain students were “late bloomers” with high potential. Those students ended up performing better because teachers gave them:
More attention
Better feedback
More patience
Warmer interactions
The expectations changed the environment, and the environment changed the outcome. 🎯
And yes, you probably feel the Pygmalion effect in your work as a creator, whether you realize it or not.
Your beliefs shape your audience’s behavior
You might think: “Sure, but those experiments were in classrooms. I’m just posting content on the internet.”
Yes, the experiment happened in a school, but it can tell us something about human brains. ****As a creator, if you assume your audience:
Won’t read → you oversimplify
Won’t care → you stay surface-level
Won’t engage → you stop asking them to stay
The annoying thing is that most of these changes happen slowly and subconsciously. The upside is that, by naming this effect, you can get back to making thumb-stopping content. 🤳🏿
Instead of dumbing down your content, you see all the nuances and real needs your followers have, and that leads to better performance. It’s a win-win.
The catch: this effect is fragile and temporary
As with most things in psychology, there’s a catch to the Pygmalion effect.
For starters, the original Pygmalion study was later criticized. Some of its methods were clearly flawed, so it may not be as applicable in the classroom as we once thought. 🤷🏻
Still, the Pygmalion effect is a thing (albeit not as powerful as we’d like it to be). However, follow-up research found something crucial: The performance boost associated with the Pygmalion effect often lasted only about two weeks.
As a creator, that means you can’t pump up your audience once and call it a day. 👏You have to reinforce positive expectations and express them in different ways so you don’t sound like a broken record.
This is where many creators accidentally get … weird. So let’s talk about how to do this well.
How creators can use the Pygmalion effect
1. Write one level smarter than “safe”
Instead of dumbing things down, leave just a little cognitive space.
Don’t explain every implication. Don’t resolve every thought. Let your audience connect the dots. 💭
2. Ask questions that assume thoughtfulness
Asking questions is one of my fave audience engagement tips. But your expectations for your audience will affect the types of questions you ask.
Just look at the difference between these questions:
“Does this make sense?” ❌
“What’s your take on this tension?” ✅
The second question assumes intelligence. Plus, it leads to meatier responses that encourage more engagement.🍿
3. Build rituals that signal continuity
The Pygmalion effect works when people feel an expectation placed on them—and then have the space to live up to it.
Rituals quietly raise the bar from passive consumption to ongoing participation, and many people rise to meet it.
When you reference earlier posts, run ongoing themes, or use callbacks and shared language, you’re doing more than creating cohesion. You’re signaling an expectation that says: “I expect you to be here tomorrow.”
4. Publicly reward depth, not just speed
People learn what’s valued by watching what you acknowledge.👀
When you highlight comments that are reflective or emotionally honest, you’re reinforcing a specific expectation: This is the level of thinking that belongs here.
That’s the Pygmalion effect in action. You’re showing your audience that thoughtfulness is noticed and rewarded. Over time, the room calibrates itself upward, and that’s a plus for your engagement rates.
5. Refresh expectations without repeating yourself
One important critique of early Pygmalion research is that the performance boost was temporary. Expectations only work if they’re reinforced, and if that reinforcement feels authentic.🤸🏼♂️
For creators, this means rotating how you signal belief in your audience. That might be through:
Sharing insights that came directly from comments or DMs
Turning audience questions into posts or videos
Framing content as collaborative thinking rather than one-way teaching
The quiet shift that changes everything
When you genuinely believe your audience is capable of deep connection, something cool happens: you slow down, risk more, and create with more care. And your audience — almost uncannily — rises to meet you there, all because you expected them to.
Your move: For your next post, create as if your audience is already thoughtful, emotionally engaged, and capable of depth. Write one idea that assumes memory, asks a real question, or rewards nuance, and watch how people rise to meet it.
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Speak soon,
Kenzi
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