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Manny

May 07 2022

The basic thesis of this book is that your expectations can make a large difference to your life, health and wellbeing. If you expect bad things to happen, you're more likely to be unsuccessful and unhealthy, and you'll have a shorter life. Conversely, if you expect good things to happen, you're more likely to do well, enjoy good health, and live longer. While I was reading it, I constantly felt two possible reactions fighting each other. One is that this is all nonsense: it's some more academic version of "The Secret", the crazy and dangerous New Age idea that just wishing for something hard enough will make the universe give it to you. The second reaction was that this actually makes a lot of sense. In particular, the placebo effect, and its converse, the nocebo effect, are well documented and certainly exist. The author himself tells you many times that you need to be careful how you read the book, and that it absolutely isn't some version of "The Secret". With that important caveat, my feeling on reaching the end is that the second reaction is much closer to the truth. Your expectations have a stronger effect on you than you probably believe, and being aware of this may help you. One of the most striking examples came early on, and describes a syndrome that was observed in Hmong people who had emigrated to the US. Many of these people believed in evil night spirits that can kill you if not placated by a shaman who knows the proper rituals. I am doubtful about the existence of the evil night spirits. But whether they exist or not, substantial numbers of Hmong people were dying in a way consistent with this belief. American doctors thought that they usually had underlying heart conditions, and had terrified themselves to such a degree that they had fatal attacks. Whatever the reason, they were ending up dead. Importing shamans who knew the rituals had a good effect. The Hmong believed that the night spirits had been scared off, and the mysterious deaths became less common. Other cases are described where black magic at least has the apparent effect of being able to harm or kill. The author is quick to answer critics who assume that this kind of case can only affect "primitive" people. Another striking example was a mysterious outbreak of a syndrome which struck down hundreds of Spanish teens and left adults unaffected. It turned out that the teens had been watching a TV soap which featured a deadly virus producing the relevant symptoms. The virus was fictitious: but once a few kids had displayed the symptoms, it spread like a real disease. There are many other documented cases of psychogenic illnesses. You do not need to think that having positive beliefs will magically make you happy and successful. If false negative beliefs can be this dangerous, it is entirely credible that avoiding them might be very good for you. Of course, you can't just wish your negative beliefs away. If they are reality-based, that might anyway be a terrible idea. Also, the author also warns you multiple times not to fall into the trap of thinking that, when bad things happen, it's your fault for not being positive enough. That will just set up another negative spiral. But he says that responsible awareness of these mechanisms may be useful to you. The book contains a great many more case studies, all carefully footnoted. I can't resist the temptation to add one more, from my personal experience. I like playing speed chess on lichess.com and chess.com, and these sites offer integrated chess engines which let you review your games afterwards to get advice from a player as strong as a top Grandmaster. As every serious chess player knows, doing this is a humbling experience. When I am in a bad mood and not thinking well, I may lose several games and feel I have been hopelessly crushed by my opponents. But the objective bot often shows me it's not true: in reality, I had some saving move I never saw, because I was thinking too negatively. On a good day, when I am in the zone, I may spot these chances and save apparently hopeless positions. But I shouldn't get too confident and think I'm playing brilliantly just because I'm winning. This time, the bot shows me that my opponents are often getting opportunities which they don't see. In actual fact, people can't play chess very well, it's too difficult; but if you're in a positive, focussed frame of mind, you'll play much better than when you're in a negative, distracted frame of mind. Well, if that's what's happening in the tiny world of the chess board, just imagine what you're missing in the infinitely more complicated game of real life. This is an interesting book! It will make you realise, once again, that the notion of "reality" is not as straightforward as you thought it was, and it may conceivably even help you.

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Chris Boutté

December 13 2021

David’s previous book The Intelligence Trap was one of my favorites, so I was absolutely ecstatic when I heard he was writing a new book. He was also kind enough to send me an early copy to check out. Once I saw what the book was about, I was worried it was going to have a lot of repeat research from other books I’ve read like Suggestible You, but David surprised the hell out of me. This book is completely unique and such an interesting book about how our mind can have changes in our body. He covers everything from intelligence, to weight loss, to reframing stress and anxiety, to aging, and soo much more. There were a bunch of studies in this book that David draws from that I had never heard about before, and even with the studies I was familiar with, he was able to explain them in a much better way than other books I’ve read. David is one of the best science writers out there, and I really hope this book gets the attention it deserves once it releases.

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notgettingenough

July 10 2022

update: I don't think this example from Japan is in the book <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/dec/16/pokemon-explosion-tv-japan-children-hospital">https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...</a> Some years ago, my Swiss doctor suggested that the first step to dealing with really bad adjustments to jetlag - it would take me weeks to recover - was to take melatonin. When I went to the pharmacy and asked for it, the girl serving said 'we only have homeopathic'. 'Oh, that's okay,' I said, thinking that it was a brand. I'd never heard of homeopathy before, and only when I got home did I discover that this meant there was nothing in it. Actually, it said in very big font on the label 2X, and apparently that meant I'd just bought two times nothing. That night come bedtime, I was really cross, drafting the letter of complaint to the pharmacy governance board. I should have been warned! But at the same time I thought well, I've paid for the darn bottle of these 'pills', I might as well take one. And I did. Then I laid in bed, irate, starting to imagine how I was going to lie there all night stark wide awake... when I fell asleep. Just like that. Yes, I know, it's only an anecdote. But when I started reading about the astonishingly scary way that the brain gets on with the body, not only inadvertently passing on false information, but even deliberately, I could see how this might have worked even if I didn't believe in it. Maybe at some level my brain was able to ignore my conscious reasoning and said to my body, sleep treatment taken, let's go. Holy Toledo if stuff like that happens.... And indeed, according to this book, such stuff happens all the time. I'm in at least two minds about this book. It's an enormous literature review done in an accessible way, though Robson is no great prose stylist. Every time he points out another way in which the expectation effect seems to come into play, we are bombarded with examples from scientific and medical trials/experiments. The reader really is overwhelmed by the evidence, so that although he occasionally points out that an experiment did not have a meaningful number of subjects, and even though we might have at the back of our minds some suspicion about the methodology and motives of such research in general, nonetheless it's hard not to say, okay, you win, it is a real phenomena. Indeed, I happened to talk to a doctor about some of this recently and she said the results are amazing in reference to knee 'operations' being performed instead of knee operations. Ie that pretending an operation has been done, even if the patient is informed, has an impressive success rate. The rest is here: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2022/07/10/the-expectation-effect-how-your-mindset-can-change-your-world-by-david-robson/">https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...</a>

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Nigeyb

February 09 2022

I heard <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/19646154.David_Robson" title="David Robson" rel="noopener">David Robson</a> on a couple of podcasts and was intrigued enough by this book to get hold of a copy. As the subtitle suggests, <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/57771229.The_Expectation_Effect_How_Your_Mindset_Can_Change_Your_World" title="The Expectation Effect How Your Mindset Can Change Your World by David Robson" rel="noopener">The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World</a> explores how our expectations and beliefs, however irrational, might influence our health, wellbeing and longevity. <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/19646154.David_Robson" title="David Robson" rel="noopener">David Robson</a> opens by exploring the well established placebo effect and also introduces an associated concept I'd never heard of - the "nocebo effect" (actually experiencing drug side-effects like nausea, headaches etc. even though the person is aware they are only taking sugar pills). What's more the placebo effect even works when the patient knows they're taking a placebo. Turns out our brains constantly anticipate what will happen next and this script is incredibly powerful. This does not mean, as some self help exponents suggest, anything bad is the fault of the individual, or that we can just ask the universe for whatever outcome we want, however there appears to be some benefit in reframing experiences when our beliefs may not be helping us. I came away from this book convinced that our expectations do correlate to some extent with our lived reality and therefore can boost or harm our health. We can improve our fitness, reduce anxiety, even extend our lives by changing the way we think. 4/5 <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1641575749l/60055522._SY475_.jpg" width="180" height="280" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy">

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Cav

February 11 2022

The Expectation Effect was a super-interesting look into the topic. Mindset is an incredibly under-researched subject, IMHO. The right mindset can often predict the outcome of any endeavour, as well as chart the trajectory of your entire life. It can often be the sole deciding factor between life and death... Author <a href="https://davidrobson.me/" rel="nofollow noopener">David Robson</a> is an award-winning science writer specialising in the extremes of the human brain, body and behaviour. David Robson: <a href="https://www.linkpicture.com/view.php?img=LPic6204351b78f3a1380758337" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1644443673i/32553724._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a> Robson opens the book with an engaging and well-written intro. He writes with a decent style, and this one shouldn't struggle to hold the reader's attention. The book is a largely science-driven look into the topics covered, which is a welcome change from other books along these lines, that can border on (or even dive head-first into) the realm of magical thinking and woo-peddling. Some of what Robson covers here will no doubt be met with much skepticism, as much of it goes against decades of established scientific orthodoxy. I am not personally qualified to pick apart the data he covers here, so I decided to take it all with a grain of salt. There are many interesting studies presented here by Robson, that are sure to leave the reader questioning many of their ingrained assumptions. Robsons begins by telling the reader about extremely bizarre occurrences of sudden death among the Hmong people: <blockquote>"Beginning in the late 1970s, the US Centers for Disease Control began to receive reports that a worrying number of recent Laotian immigrants were dying in their sleep. They were almost all male, aged between their mid-20s and mid-40s, and most were from the persecuted Hmong ethnic group, who had fled Laos after the rise to power of the communist political movement Pathet Lao. For their loved ones, the only warning was the sound of them struggling for breath and, occasionally, a gasp, a moan, or a cry. By the time help arrived, however, they were already dead..."</blockquote> What exactly was going on here?? Robson unfolds the thesis of the book. Incredibly, due largely to people's inborn pro-social <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron#:~:text=A%20mirror%20neuron%20is%20a,the%20observer%20were%20itself%20acting.&text=The%20subject%20of%20mirror%20neurons%20continues%20to%20generate%20intense%20debate." rel="nofollow noopener">neural "mirroring,"</a> coupled with the brain's predictor effects, these otherwise healthy people suddenly died. Robson writes that the brain is a prediction machine, and our subjective experience of reality is deeply influenced by what those expectations are. To illuminate this point, he includes a few optical illusions, including this ambiguous photo; which can be seen as a right-facing rabbit or a left-facing bird, depending on many contextual factors. <a href="https://www.linkpicture.com/view.php?img=LPic6203f69a3e9d21497463146" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1644426920i/32552838._SX540_.png" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a> He also takes a deep dive into the incredibly interesting medical phenomenon of both the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo" rel="nofollow noopener">placebo </a>and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo" rel="nofollow noopener">nocebo effect</a>s. The placebo effect is extremely well-evidenced and robust, across a wide variety of therapeutical interventions. Just as perplexing, the nocebo effect (basically the placebo's inverse) is also very well-evidenced. There have been many cases of people reporting sicknesses and other pathological symptoms, despite having no underlying conditions... People's inherent pro-social wiring is a central theme of the writing here, as Robson continues on, talking about social contagions; including EMF "sensitivities," and a possible psychosomatic case for the recent cases of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome" rel="nofollow noopener">Havana syndrome</a> seen in American diplomats stationed in both Cuba and China. I had a small point of contention here about the Havana symptoms being psychosomatic. Many of the victims of these unknown attacks have actually shown traumatic brain injuries in brain scans. I'm not sure if a nocebo effect can cause a TBI... The book also includes talk about sports performance. Robson says that most athletes' absolute limits are actually set by the brain, and not by physical constraints of the body. In another bit of incredibly-interesting writing, Robson talks about mindset, expectations, and health. He writes: <blockquote>"Our expectations may even override the apparent link between stress and heart disease – one of the most persistent and alarming messages about anxiety. An eight-year longitudinal study of more than 28,000 people, for example, found that high levels of anxiety and mental tension did indeed lead to a 43 per cent increase in mortality – but only if the participants believed that it was doing them harm. People who were under high pressure, but who believed it to have little effect on their health, were actually less likely to die than those who experienced very little stress at all. That was true even when the scientists controlled for a host of other lifestyle factors, such as income, education, physical activity and smoking. Overall, the authors calculate that the belief that stress is harmful leads to the equivalent of around 20,000 preventable deaths a year in the US – an astonishing number of people who, like the Hmong immigrants that we met in the introduction, are essentially dying from noxious expectations."</blockquote> The book also includes a summary at the end of every chapter, titled "How to think about ____." Here's one: <blockquote> How to think about . . . intelligence, learning and creativity: • Try to honestly assess your own abilities, and question whether you have internalised negative expectations. Is there really good reason to think you are inherently bad at maths or art, for instance? Or might you have the capacity to improve? • Once you have identified potential areas of growth, try to test whether those negative assumptions are true by looking for new challenges that push you out of your intellectual or creative comfort zone. • Throughout this process, recognise that any moments of frustration are themselves a sign of effective learning and reflect the importance of the task at hand. This simple reframing will, by itself, increase your performance. • If you feel especially anxious or believe you may be suffering from stereotype threat, try to practise self-affirmation (pages 198–201). This involves noting the many other personal characteristics or values that matter to your identity and the reasons that they are important to you, as a way of neutralising your fears and negative expectations. • If you are a teacher or manager, try to think about the ways your own behaviours may be transmitting your expectations to others, both verbally and non-verbally. You may not be conscious of your body language or tone of voice, so it could be helpful either to ask an outside observer to watch your interactions or to film yourself interacting with your students or colleagues.</blockquote> From there, Robson takes a natural segue into aging and longevity; mentioning, incredibly, that your mindset and expectations can influence both of those: <blockquote>"Indeed, many scientists are coming to the conclusion that your beliefs about the ageing process may be as important for your long-term well-being as your actual age..."</blockquote> <a href="https://www.linkpicture.com/view.php?img=LPic62042a036b846146521565" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1644440079i/32553490._SX540_.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a> What is going on there? Robson unravels the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_embodiment_theory" rel="nofollow noopener"> "stereotype embodiment theory," </a> which is basically what you might think it is. Often, people become aligned with the expectations they have of themselves, their health, and their lives - be it for good, or for bad. ************************ As mentioned at the start of this review, I enjoyed The Expectation Effect. I am very interested in the topic of mindset, and so this one caught my attention right from the title. It was an eye-opening look into the topics presented. If I had to find fault with the book, I would opine that the writing here tended to be a bit dry and flat at times. It was still a great book. 5 stars.

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Chetan

October 10 2022

How do our expectations and beliefs influence our lives? Does the picture we hold in our mind's eye influence our reality? David Robson suggests it does. Using data from various studies in different areas of science, like medicine, chemistry, behavioral science, psychology, and athletics. Bridging the counterintuitive results that lack subject-specific explanations. Like how placebos have cured sick patients. How eating less but being told it's more has reduced hunger in study subjects. How elite athletes performed higher than their previous peak performance when their performance output data was manipulated. How an individual's views on old age and biological ability reflect their body. Importantly, people with a negative attitude towards old age demonstrate more characteristical age-related changes. All the studies are used to underline the importance of the state of mind. The evidence shows that our mind's deterministic emotional inclination affects and molds the outcome of our reality. Adopting this lens to view the world is what David Robson recommends, and I can't help but agree.

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Maher Razouk

January 17 2022

من الجيد أن يتذكر الرياضيون والحكام - أثناء الخلافات الرياضية - أن الدماغ البشري هو عبارة عن آلة تنبؤ . عندما يتشاجر لاعب تنس وحكم على نقطة ما ، فإن ذلك يعكس اختلافًا خطيرًا في التجربة الإدراكية: أحدهما "رأى" الكرة داخل الملعب والآخر "رآها" في الخارج. لم يكن أي من الطرفين غبيًا أو مخادعًا - لقد قامت عقولهم ببساطة ببناء محاكاة مختلفة للعالم من حولهم ، مما جعلهم يتمتعون بتجارب مختلفة جذريًا للحدث. بالنسبة لكل شخص ، كان من الممكن أن يبدو التصور "حقيقيًا" مثل خضرة العشب أو زرقة السماء. اللاعب الواثق ، على وجه الخصوص ، قد يكون مهيأ لرؤية الكرة تهبط لصالحه ، وبدون أي نية واعية للخداع ، يمكن أن يؤثر ذلك على تصوره - وهذه الظاهرة يسميها علماء النفس "الرؤية المرغوبة". . David Robson The Expectation Effect Translated By #Maher_Razouk

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Maureen Grigsby

April 08 2022

Very interesting information regarding how our beliefs can physically change outcomes.

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Eisha

June 01 2023

A solid 3.5 stars. Minus 1.5 stars because it was very boring initially (the first 4 chapters and the last one) and hard to read through at first. In a nutshell, David Robson talks about how our expectations, experiences and inputs from our environment shape the world we see and how we have the power to change our lives if we learn how to manage our expectations. There are 10 chapters in the book and each talk about different aspects of one's life that may be influenced by expectations. The book essentially gives the same message throughout but offers a lot of research and studies, which is why this may be the only self-help book that I actually read through and enjoyed. The message is not based on unfounded optimism but backed up by science and research. Moreover, it actually brought forth new ideas that are not found in every "How to Be Productive" article, one of the most important ones being, reframing your thoughts. For example, the author mentions when one gets fatigued during a workout, one tends to think they have poor fitness. However, getting fatigued actually means that the workout is "working", and your muscles are engaged. This was a new idea for me entirely, maybe not so for others but something that I will definitely be applying during my next exercise session. Moreover, the book builds up a good idea of placebo and nocebo effects before explaining how we can use them to our advantage. While the world of placebos is vast and unchartered, this book offered a very comprehensive explanation highlighting things that are little known, such as our brains responding to placebos even when we are well aware of them. Amongst the 10 chapters, my favorite one has to be chapter 9 which talks about the Pygmalion effect; how our expectations of others essentially determine their performance. It was perhaps the most impactful chapter for me, as growing up I actually saw it around me and picked up on it whence I was very young. "As children, we were thrilled by fairy tales in which a random child was blessed by a fairy godmother or a witch - but the alarming reality is that many people are subject to others' prophecies based on nothing more than their race, gender or the appearance of their face, and even the subtlest biases have the power to change the trajectory of our whole life."

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