Okay, so picture this: I decided to really dive deep into social psychology, you know, get all up in the experiments and theories. And who better to “test” on than my friend Kara? (Don’t worry, it was all in good fun, and she was a willing participant!). The goal was to see if I could somehow, subtly, influence her exam performance.
First, I started by gathering some classic social psych studies. Things like conformity, priming, maybe a little bit of cognitive dissonance for good measure. I spent a good few hours just reading and making notes. My desk looked like a mad scientist’s lab, covered in papers and highlighted passages.
Then came the “implementation” phase. The day before Kara’s exam, I made a point of casually chatting with her. We talked about all sorts of stuff, but I subtly steered the conversation towards topics related to failure and negative outcomes. Think subtle stuff like, “Man, that one test in high school was brutal, I totally bombed it.” I wanted to see if I could prime her with a negative mindset.
- I focused on talking, not lecturing. It had to be natural.
- I made sure she did most of the talking, just dropping in little “seeds.”
- I really played up the feeling of anxiety I get before tests.
I even went as far as to “accidentally” leave a textbook open to a page about the “self-fulfilling prophecy” where she could see it. You know, the idea that if you believe you’ll fail, you probably will? Yeah, that one.
The next day, I texted her before the exam, something super simple like, “Good luck, not that you’ll need it… (wink emoji).” Just a tiny nudge to remind her of our conversation from the day before.
The Results
Well, as the title suggests, Kara got an F. Now, before you call me a terrible friend, she found the whole thing hilarious. She actually said, “I knew you were up to something!” We laughed about it, and she admitted she probably would have done better if she hadn’t been so aware of my “experiment.”
So, what did I learn? Social influence is a real thing, even in subtle ways. I didn’t make her fail, but my actions definitely played a role in her mindset, even if it was just making her overly conscious of the possibility of failure. It was a fun, albeit slightly mischievous, way to see social psychology in action!
