Instead of dismissing it, one should be taking advantage of this (obviously we can’t explain the pathway of change) – like some good godmans seem to for good or evil (like adding an “a” to get that kid studying again).

A question that had intrigued researchers for years was why African-Americans underperformed in standardized tests (ACTs, SATs, etc.) even after social status, economic differences, education quality, etc. all controls were accounted for.

Then in a new study, African-Americans writing the test were told that the test will pit them against other African-Americans. Surprisingly enough, their scores went up! Soon enough more studies were done along the same lines.

Most interesting one was done with Asian women. In controlled set ups, two comparable sets of Asian women were asked to write a math test. For half of them, the first question was “Your gender is: Male/Female” and for the other half this question was replaced with “You belong to the following race: Caucasian, African, Asian…etc.”. The scores for women who identified their gender just before the test were lower than the scores for women identifying their race.

The inference is that the low-scoring women conformed with the stereotype of women being worse at math than men. On the other hand, the other women conformed the stereotype that Asians are better at math than others.

OK – this is the gist of a lecture for one of my classes on Tuesday. I did not have the time to specify references. If you don’t believe it, power to you.

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Atanu just got hit by his friend’s belief in numerology. The challenge is to find a way to hel [...]

Did the father mention to his son about the name change and the son psychologically became more capable? Don’t laugh. Lot of this stuff is the state of brain. Read last week’s science section of the Economist on phantom hand, pain, and what cured it.

Atanu’s response: I believe that people will believe anything as long as it is comforting. I think Ajay is convinced that numerology works and therefore he perceives a positive difference in Vijay’s behavior. Of course, Vijay is not an automaton. He is not a constant of nature. There will be natural variations in his motivations, how much effort he puts into his school work, etc. Being told that adding a letter to his name will make him better itself has a placebo effect.

I am sure that numerology works as effectively as astrology, pyramid power, and voodoo.