Sept. 24, 2025

How Your Expectations Create Your Reality (Prime yourself to succeed)

Our expectations shape our experience of the world, influencing not just our perceptions but even our physiology. In this episode, I'm talking about the Expectancy Effect. Our brain acts as a prediction machine, constructing our reality based on what we anticipate. This phenomenon affects everything from social interactions to health outcomes. By understanding how proactively priming our own brain to expect good things, we can actively create a more fulfilling life. Takeaways:

Our expectations shape not just our perceptions but also our physiological experiences, creating our reality.
The expectancy effect shows that our brain acts as a prediction machine, shaping what we see based on past experiences.
Engaging in positive visualisation can significantly improve recovery outcomes and overall well-being, according to psychological studies.
Understanding the science behind our expectations can empower us to shift our mindset and improve our life experiences.

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Chapters

00:00 - Untitled

00:00 - Introduction to the Crappy to Happy Podcast

01:59 - The Expectancy Effect: Understanding Our Perceptions

11:01 - The Expectation Effect: How Perception Shapes Reality

14:09 - The Power of Expectation: Understanding the Placebo Effect

17:51 - The Impact of Expectations on Recovery

22:43 - Shifting Perspectives: The Power of Gratitude

Transcript

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This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Done.

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I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher

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and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In

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this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent

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people who are experts in their field and who have

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something of value to share that will help you feel

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less crappy.

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And more happy.

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Hello and welcome back to the Crappita Happy Podcast. My goodness,

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it has been a couple of weeks since I published

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an episode. I have to apologize. I've been quite consumed

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with building a new website. And when I say building

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a new website, I don't mean like outsourcing that and

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paying somebody to build a website. I've literally been building

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a new website, whole platform to house all of my

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online programs and my mailing list, and it has been

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quite the project right before I head off overseas, and

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it has literally been twenty four to seven Well not literally,

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but it's been very, very all consuming.

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So I'm very pleased to report.

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That that is pretty much all done now, but a

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few other things have gone by the wayside while I've

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been obsessed with that if that isn't a little ADHD

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hyper focused, I don't know what is all of these

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things that I now understand ADHD symptoms but I didn't

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realize ever before. But that's a topic for another day.

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Will be a topic for another day, because I am

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having so many people contact me. People I know, people

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in my community, clients of mine who have been saying

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the day to have realized that actually ADHD is what

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has been going on for them, and they are taking

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their own steps to get a diagnosis. And it's a

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whole new world. But that is not what we're here

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to talk about. I want to talk to you today

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about really really interesting psychological phenomenon which is known as

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the expectancy effect. Now, if you are a paid subscriber

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and you've been listening to Beyond Happy, you will know

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that I've talked about this in our most recent series,

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our mini series, which was all about how to create

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a life you love, And essentially what that series was

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about was about how we can use science to support

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these kind of we woo out their ideas about law

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of attraction and manifestation, which are very popular and which

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you know, don't get me wrong, like I'm all about

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the manifesting, and I love the law.

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Of attraction as a theory.

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But for those who are not so interested necessarily are

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not so sold on the spiritual nature or the kind

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of magical nature of it, then I wanted to ground

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it in a little bit of science, and therefore I

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made a series talking about how there is actually a

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lot of neuroscience that underpins some of these ideas and

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some of these results that we get in our lives

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when we do really focus clearly and positively on what

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it is that we want to create. Now, for you,

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when I hear that series, you can you know what

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to do. You can pay to subscribe. But this idea

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of the expectancy effect was so interesting to me that

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I thought it really needed to be heard by you,

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like it needed to be heard by a much wider audience,

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because I think it is so important and so helpful

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and potentially relevant to all of us.

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So this idea is.

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That essentially that we create, like our own experience in life,

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even our physical experience, physiological symptoms, the functioning of our

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body and what exists in our world is largely created

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by what we expect, not by what is like not

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hardcore objective reality, but what we perceive or what we expect,

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we actually create our own reality. So let me tell

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you how this works and why I think this is

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so important. So essentially, the way our brain works, and

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you know our brain is what we see, what we hear,

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what we feel, what we experience, the sensations in our body,

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what we focus on, how we process information.

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Our brain is not like a camera.

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That is just passively receiving information or recording information.

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That exists outside of us.

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Our brain is essentially a prediction machine and through the

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way it is predicting what it expects is going to happen,

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and what it predicts and what it expects is based

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on all of our past experiences. Like you put your

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hand out where you expect that there's a doorknob, It's

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going to be right because of all of your experiences

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in the past of where doorknobs are positioned on doors.

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It's that kind of thing. But what that does the

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way that our brain is actively constructing what it expects

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to see or what it expects to experience, we are

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actively generating what we do experience. We're actively generating what

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does exist in the world around us and what we

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do experience what we do see and what we do here.

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If that sounds a little complex or you're wondering, like,

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so what are you talking about? If you think about, like,

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apart from the door knob example, you know those ambiguous

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drawings that you see where if you look at it, it

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can be a young woman or an old woman, depending

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on how you look at it, and so there's no

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objective truth about what exists in that drawing. When you

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look up to the clouds in the sky and you

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start to see shapes, there's no objective truth to what

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the shape the cloud is making. Your brain is predicting

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what it is, it's interpreting, and it is creating an image,

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and so your perception, my perception, somebody else's perception is

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going to be different. Now take the ambiguous drawing for example.

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There was one study that was done where at a

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zoo where people were walking in, there was a picture

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of an animal on the wall or something, and people

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were asked what the picture was of, And interestingly, when

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you look at the picture, it could be a duck.

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It looks very much like a duck with like a

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pointy beak, you know, like a V shape beak out

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of the side like the profile of a duck's head

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with a V shape beak, or it could be a rabbit,

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which is the profile of a rabbit head with V

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shaped like ears poking out of the back, depending if

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you look at the image phasing to the right as

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a beak, or you flip it and actually the V

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is coming at the back of the duck's head and

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it's actually a rabbit.

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Now.

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When they asked people in October, what did they see

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in the image, ninety percent of people interpreted it as

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a duck.

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Looks like a duck.

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When I saw the picture, I thought it was a

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duck come east time. When they surveyed people, and particularly

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when they surveyed children under the age of ten, one

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hundred percent of children saw a rabbit. So again, children

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under ten, they are the group that is most likely

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to be on the lookout or have in their mind

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the idea of a rabbit around Easter time. And so therefore,

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because they're all about it's Easter, and all their experiences

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is easter bunnies, and that's what they're thinking about when

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they look at the picture, they see rabbit. Back in October,

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it was a duck. So the picture hasn't changed, but

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what we think the picture is changes based on all

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of our own mood, our personal history, our past experience.

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So much goes into influencing what we see or what

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we experience. If you have heard that there's a lot

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of break ins in your neighborhood, and you're sitting at

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home alone when you hear a noise, a noise that

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normally wouldn't bother you at all, or you would immediately

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think is a cart walking over the back fence. Immediately

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you start perceiving that it could be somebody trying to

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break in. You have a different response because of your expectations,

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because of what you are primed to be thinking about

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or focusing on. I've mentioned before on the show that

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if you are feeling stressed, if you're feeling shy, if

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you're feeling anxious, you are more likely to perceive neutral

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facial expressions as hostile. If you are shown a photo

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of a person with a neutral facial expression, whether you

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perceive that that person is angry, you know, harsh rejecting

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all comes down to how you feel.

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You literally see.

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That face, interpret that face in a different way because

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of how you are, not because of how that face

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is with the expression that that person has on their face.

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You can see the implications of this, can't you. In fact,

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they did another study with university students and they had

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them watching a video of students, adolescents kind of just

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interacting with each other. So they're watching on a video

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other students interacting with each other, and they track their

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eye movements to see what they were looking at. In

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the images, there's lots of people, lots of things going on,

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lots of people engaging.

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With each other.

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The students watching the video who were quite popular, very

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well liked, who had an active social life. When they

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looked at that video, they noticed with their eye movements

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that they tended to be looking at and focusing on

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the students in the video who were nodding, smiling, encouraging, socializing, active, friendly.

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There's students who in real life were more lonely and

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more socially isolated. When they watched that same video and

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they tracked the eye movements, they tended to be focusing

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on the students in the video who seemed a little

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more hostile and a little more unfriendly. So when we

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talk about a self ful feeling prophecy, what we are

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experiencing shapes our expectations of what we're going to likely encounter.

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And then the way our brain works, this expectation machine,

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this prediction machine that it is, it starts finding all

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of the information that confirms our existing view. It's a

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confirmation bias, you know, Like that's what confirmation bias is.

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It's we actively filter out information or diminish or minimize

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the information that doesn't support our existing worldview, our existing

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belief We actively seek out, not consciously, unconsciously, we actively

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filter in all of the information that confirms our existing view.

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This is how we get so entrenched in our particular opinions,

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in our views about things, especially I mean, this is

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a whole other topic, but especially with the way that

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we are so online at the moment and so frequently

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on social media, which uses algorithms to continue to just

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feed us more of the information that supports our existing views,

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and so we become more and more and more entrenched

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in our existing worldview. And we know that that is

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a problem. Back to this expectation effect though, this expectancy effect.

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If you're afraid of heights and you're asked to estimate

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the height, the distance off the ground, that a balcony is.

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People who are fearful of heights tend to estimate that

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the balcony is like five feet higher than what it

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actually is. They see it differently, they perceive it differently.

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It is so important to understand that the way we

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see the world is not how the world is. The

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way we see the world is how we are and

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how and what we expect to experience. If I tell

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you that what I'm serving you for dinner is a

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delicious chicken breast filet, and you like chicken, then you'll

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be primed to think that that's going to be delicious.

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Now if I tell you it's a delicious chicken breast

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filet and it's actually something else, God, I don't even know.

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I'll kin't even come up with an example of what

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it might be. But if it's not, then you're likely

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to still think that's delicious chicken breast because that's what

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your brain is expecting. If, on the other hand, I

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tell you that delicious chicken breast is something else which

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is really gross, then it's going to change the flavor

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of that. It's going to change how you even taste

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the food. This is apparently really well known, and it's

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really widely used in restaurants when they described you the

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food that you're going to eat, and they talk it

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up and they describe it in all of this detail

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because it primes you to expect it to taste good,

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and therefore it tastes better. So this is all very interesting.

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I mean, also, our memories aren't even accurate. Like when

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you recall an event, you don't actually recall what happened.

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You have a perception of what happened, which is like

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a snapshot that your brain took at the time. Which again,

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the snapshot that you take is how your brain has

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processed that event. It's not an actual snapshot that is

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the reality of what happened. So you'll have had all

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of your own filters interpreting that event. You lay it

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down in memory. Now, every time you call that memory up,

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you're essentially creating a new version of that memory.

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So memories can change over time.

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Because if one time you pull the photo out, sorry,

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you pull the memory out, and on that occasion, for

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whatever reason, you think that the car was blue and

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it wasn't red, then the next time you pull the

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photo out, you'll recall that it was blue because that

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was the most recent memory that you are drawing on.

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So you're constantly revising and updating even your memories every

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time you recall them. So this is how your even

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your memory is so like unreliable. But where this gets

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really interesting to me is not just how it impacts

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us socially, which I think is really important and really interesting.

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You think about the implications of that in terms of

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when you go into any social situation, when you're in

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the workplace, when you whatever expectation you have, your brain

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is creating very reality. It's a prediction machine. It is

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filling in gaps, it is filling in blanks, it is

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interpreting situations based on what you expect. Now, taking that

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one step further, you think about something like the placebo effect. Now,

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the placebo effect, as you know, is when people are

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given a sugar pill basically like a non therapeutic and

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non active substance water, sugar something, but told that it

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has some kind of therapeutic or healing benefits. And it's

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widely been proven. It's very well known that a certain

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percentage of people will experience actual physical health benefits, will

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their physiology will change because of their expectation that they

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have been given a medication that is going to reduce

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their symptoms or improve their outcomes, or change what's happening

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in their body. Physiology literally changes symptoms, actually reduce. I'm

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talking about not just your perception of pain, though that

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is one. It's not just your perception of pain. It's

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even things like blood pressure, like physiological markers of health,

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like the amount of certain proteins and enzymes and antibodies

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and things that actually exist in your body. They change

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because of your expectation. And there was one really interesting

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experiment that they did where people had experienced a bypass

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had had bypass surgery. Now, bypass surgery is really kind

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of major surgery, right, It's pretty intensive, it's pretty invasive.

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So what they did was they got people who were

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having this bypass surgery. This study was called sy heart

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as in psy like psychology, I guess. And so what

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they did was they had two meetings and three phone

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calls with these patients who having this bypass surgery. And

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these meetings and these phone calls were designed to basically

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improve the patient's expectations of a positive outcome. They would

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talk about the procedure, what was going to happen and

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all the ways that they could alleviate their heart disease,

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you know, the things that they could do to be

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more proactive in terms of their health. And I guess

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the focus was really on focusing on the potential positive benefit,

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like the positive outcome that they might experience, rather than

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just talking about the problem and the disease and what

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they were going to do. And then they got them

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to fill out this personal recovery plan where they got

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them to focus on the positive benefits that they would

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experience after that had this surgery. So they were encouraging

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them to be optimistic about what was going to be

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on the other side of this surgery, the positive things

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that they could experience, And so they got them to

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make plans and to be optimistic, but you know, not unrealistic.

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They weren't putting that they were going to go on

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climb everest or anything like that, but you know that

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they would be able to travel and see friends and

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get back into things that they had previously enjoyed doing

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that they hadn't been able to do, just really positive

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stuff like that. They also they got them to do

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a positive visualization where they would imagine their life six

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months after the operation and where they're at and what

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they'd achieved, and you know how much better and improved

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things were. Now. Obviously they always need a control group.

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So with the control group, they just gave them some

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basic emotional support. They had the same number of sessions,

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but they didn't really discuss any expectations about the surgery.

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And the reason for this is often that when an

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experiment involves meetings or you know, one on one time

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or things like that, there can be a risk that

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the benefits that people get is as a result of

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the social support. So often with the control group they

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try to replicate that social contact, the social support aspect,

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but they just don't give them the activities. I guess

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that they're trying to measure the benefits from. And then

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they had a third group in this case, which was

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people who had none of that. They didn't get any

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of the group, they didn't get any discussion, emotional support.

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They just basically went through the bypass surgery. So straight

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away after the surgeries, the first thing they noticed was

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that the people who had been in this active recovery

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positive visualization group were discharged on average four point seven

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days earlier. They were ready to leave the hospital significantly

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earlier than the other bypass patients and then later. So

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they followed up and they had questionnaires about how the

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surgery had been affecting all aspects of their life, their

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social life, their sleep, recreation, family life, et cetera. And

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the people who had the positive expectations tended to show

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the fastest improvement. They tended at the six month mark

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to be the most ready to go back to work,

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the most ready to get back to doing the things

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that they had been doing before. But then, importantly, the

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other thing that they did so that this was not

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just all the subject's own self perception, was they took

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measures of things like their inflammatory markers in their blood,

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and the people in the positive expectation group had much

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lower levels of these pro inflammatory markers, So there were

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actual physiological changes, significant differences. The process of planning, looking forward,

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being optimistic, and visualizing a positive outcome actually experienced a

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much more positive outcome, fast recovery, way faster to get

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back to normal life benefits across the board. Now, if

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you think about that, that's really great for the individuals

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who did that study, and we can all take something

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from that in terms of how we approach things that

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might be difficult and things that might potentially be scary

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or have a difficult outcome. You think about how we

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can potentially impact our own experience by how we perceive it,

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like where we choose to put our focus. So it's

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really profoundly beneficial, not just for the individual, but even

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from it like a public health perspective. You think about

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if people can get out of hospital quicker, if we

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can take some of the burden off the public health system,

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like you think about the implications of that across the board.

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It's actually really real interesting.

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There are so many other examples of things like how

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people's experience of life, people's experience of health and wellbeing

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or not, or sickness. People die earlier when they have

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a strong belief or that they have an expectation of

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something terrible going wrong. It cannot be stressed enough that

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how we think what we expect changes our experience, not

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just in terms of what we perceive when we go

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about the world, your whole physiology, your physical experience, actually

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changes the flow and effects of that to every aspect

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of your life. Because of the way this becomes self reinforcing,

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you have an expectation. Therefore, you have an experience. When

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you have that experience, it feeds back in and reinforces

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your expectation. If you are a person who is and look,

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everybody's going to go through rough times in life. But

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if you are a person who is anxious or depressed,

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you are literally experiencing a different world. You are walking

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around in a different world than somebody who is top

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of the world and feeling positive and happy. And we

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can't always help some of these mood disorders and the

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states that we get in and life can be challenging,

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and we all go through really difficult times, and you

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maybe have a terrible health diagnosis, so maybe you going

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through a crappy time in your relationship will financially or whatever.

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But it is just so important to remember that when

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you are in a tough state, like when you're in

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a negative state, you are actually not necessarily seeing things

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the way they are. You're not necessarily getting an unbiased,

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objective view of reality. What your brain is trained and

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primed to see in other people's exchanges with you, what

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your brain goes out to look for when it is

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filtering in the information that it thinks is relevant to you.

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You are going to be more likely to filter in

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and to absorb the experiences that reinforce your negative state.

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So whatever you can personally do to help help you

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to shift into something that's more positive, and it's never

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about being a polyanna and pretending things are fine when

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they're not. It is about understanding the science. It's about

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understanding the neuroscience. There is no objective reality. Objectively, there

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are not like ten people criticizing you in a room.

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You are seeing expressions on people's faces that don't necessarily exist.

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Depending on your own mental state, you might also be

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perceiving that they're really happy with you and they're not.

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I mean that can go both ways. Let's fase it.

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But everything is going to be self reinforcing. So it's

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