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The Pygmalion and Golem Effects are woven into the fabric of our world. Every day, we make each other smarter or stupider, stronger or weaker, faster or slower. We can't help leaking expectations, through our gazes, our body language and our voices. My expectations about you define my attitude towards you, and the way I behave towards you in turn influences your expectations and therefore your behaviour towards me.
If you think about it, this gets to the very crux of the human condition. *Homo puppy* is like an antenna, constantly attuned to other people. Somebody else's finger gets trapped in the door and you flinch. A tightrope walker balances on a thin cord and you feel your own stomach lurch. Someone yawns and it's almost impossible for you not to yawn as well. We're hardwired to mirror one another.
Most of the time, this mirroring works well. It fosters connections and good vibes, as when everybody's grooving together on the dance floor. Our natural instinct to mirror others tends to be seen in a positive light for precisely this reason, but the instinct works two ways. We also mirror negative emotions such as hatred, envy and greed. And when we adopt one another's bad ideas - thinking them to be ideas everybody around us holds - the results can be downright disastrous.
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