Do the law of attraction and positive thinking really work?

Debunking false myths about human happiness.

Is there such a thing as the power of positive thinking? In principle, there is no proof of it, no matter how much some self-help books and advice magazines encourage us to raise our best "good vibes" to the cosmos.

A person who believes that he or she can achieve this or that goal is more likely to achieve it than a person who does not trust in his or her own resources. That is absolutely true, but it has nothing to do with "good vibes"..

Perseverance matters more than positive thinking.

The key mechanism of action is perseverance.. Someone with a moderate or high degree of confidence in his own abilities and management capacity will not be discouraged so easily in the face of problems that arise along the way, and will be well predisposed to redouble his efforts in the face of adversity.

On the contrary, those who do not have a good self-concept will easily become discouraged and abandon the crusade at the slightest failure.

The role of expectations

The same applies to the expectations we place on a product.

Numerous research studies have shown that when people take a supposed painkiller that they have been told is one of the most expensive on the market, they feel much greater relief from an ailment than when they are told that the painkiller is generic or is just another cheap drug among the many that can be bought in a pharmacy.

The trick, in both cases, is to give people a neutral pill with no real pain-fighting properties: a placebo. The problem with these experiments is that they lack a certain scientific rigor, since measuring Pain objectively is not easy and has some operational drawbacks.

Let's see, participants are asked, after they take the tablet, to rate the pain they are feeling on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 equals unbearable pain, and 1 equals no pain.

The inherent flaw in such a procedure is the impossibility of measuring with reliable parameters the perception of the different levels of pain being felt. of the different levels of pain that the person is experiencing.

In other words, it is not possible to check whether the score someone gives to pain is real. It should not be forgotten that what the person "believes" he or she is feeling depends on a number of factors closely linked to his or her subjectivity.

However, another series of experiments revealed the power that expectations exert on some intellectual capacities.

The drinking and suggestion experiment

A group of people were recruited to solve a mental game. From a series of jumbled letters, they were to deduce the correct word at a given time..

This served to establish a baseline, i.e., to know the average number of words that could be arrived at in a neutral condition. For example, when presented with the letters "rcberoe" they had to construct the word "brain". The final result was set at 9 real words out of a total of 15 words with the letters disordered.

In the second condition of the experiment, participants were given a caffeine-based energy drink beforehand.

They were also conveniently informed that these kinds of drinks had the property of improving mental activity, and after a few minutes of waiting for the concoction to supposedly take effect, they were given the task of rearranging words.

What happened?

On average, the participants who drank the energy drink also solved 9 words, i.e., the same number as the participants who drank the energy drink.The same number of words that had previously been solved by the experimental subjects in the neutral condition.

It seemed that the generic expectation of improved mental activity was not powerful enough to have a real impact on the participants' intellectual abilities. But the surprising thing happened next.

In a third condition of the experiment, written information extolling the alleged beneficial properties of the drink was added. Specifically, a series of brochures were handed out to the participants explaining that it had been scientifically proven that the energy drink they were about to consume significantly increased the speed at which the brain processed information.

Such a finding, which translated into greater speed in solving mental games, had been confirmed by scientists after more than a dozen studies had been conducted. What was the result? This time, the participants actually became "smarter" and solved an average of 12 words, i.e. about 3 words more.that is, about 3 words more than the control group.

All the false scientific information they had previously read, which claimed that the energy drink possessed incredible intellectual capacity-enhancing properties, had generated an accumulation of expectations of such magnitude that it favorably predisposed people to make a greater cognitive effort, with real and tangible results. They had been suggested.

Another example of expectation-based suggestion

In another interesting experiment, a group of people were individually shown a photograph of an individual with a neutral expression on his or her face, and asked what impression this person made on them.

The responses obtained were in accordance with the participants' prior beliefs.. Half of the group had been told beforehand that the man in the photograph was a Nazi doctor who had presided over atrocious experiments in a concentration camp during World War II.

The other half of the group was told that, on the contrary, he was a resistance leader who had fought fiercely against fascism, and that his bravery had saved dozens of Jews from certain death.

Thus, faced with the same image, the people in the first group felt that this man looked ruthless, that cruelty showed on his face, and that he could hardly suppress a sneer of disdain and irony.

The people in the second group, on the other hand, said that they were confronted with a kind, warm and trustworthy face.. In line with the above, the power of expectations to color or modify perceptual experience has also been demonstrated in a series of ingenious experiments.

Image-based wine tasting

In another investigation, expert tasters praised the goodness of a seven-dollar wine, when they were previously informed that the bottle cost seventy dollars, and they were served the drink in delicate crystal glasses.

Know that if you are a restaurant owner, it is in your best interest to take meticulous care in the presentation of your meals, as they are as important, if not more important, than the preparation of the dish itself.

The power of anticipation

Everything seems to indicate that when we anticipate that something will be good, it is quite likely that it will turn out to be so.

For example, we are capable of drinking a full glass of beer mixed with vinegar and savoring it without any prejudice if the person who invites us simply omits the detail of the adulteration. On the contrary, if he informs us exactly what we are about to drink, as soon as we take a sip, we will wrinkle our nose and look disgusted.

In other words, if we anticipate that something will taste bad, we will indeed perceive the bad taste, thanks to the previous expectations we have generated.Thanks to the previous expectations that we have generated.

Similarly, if we have to evaluate how much we like the coffee served in a certain coffee shop, it will seem much tastier and we will be well predisposed to give it a high rating if everything that surrounds the coffee, including the tableware and table linen of the place, seems to be of first quality.

If we then have the opportunity to try the same coffee, but we are told that it is a different brand, and it is served in a plastic cup, this time it will seem mediocre or outright bad. Once again, our expectations will have a powerful influence on the perception of taste.

It is not enough for the brain that a product is really the best on the market, or that a person is a top professional in his or her discipline... it also has to seem so. The prior knowledge we have about something, our beliefs, prejudices and stereotypes derived from culture, are all factors that affect the way we see the world.