This is honestly so interesting and I've never paid it much thought until now.
For me, I will consciously try harder because of the expectations that teachers and students place on me. I get so anxious about "proving myself" or upholding
someone else's standards that I
think they have set for me. What I find most interesting is that if I think that one teacher has expectations of me in their class, my brain will apply those expectations across all my classes. So if my Physics teacher was like, "Omg! Don't even worry about it, you are going to do so well on this exam because you're smart, you always do well," my brain will then be like "Well, now I have to do well in Psychology too." I think its because, I know that teachers talk in the staff room and I get scared that some of my teachers might discuss my performance with each other (e.g. my Physics teacher could talk to my psych teacher and be like "Wow Katelyn did so well on the student experiment for physics," too which my psych teacher might reply "Really? 'Cause she's pretty dumb in my class..." - this is completely absurd, but I did get scared that it could happen).
In the same vein, if I get the ~vibes~ that one teacher doesn't like my work (*cough*my English teacher*cough*), and doesn't expect good performance from me, then I will work my butt off to try to turn that around so that they don't go back to the staff room and impact my other teacher's expectations of me (even though I hate feeling like I have high expectations placed on me). The worst part about my teachers having expectations was that they rarely took my concerns and stress seriously. Like I was majorly stressed about the externals (I'm talking not being able to sleep for two months leading up to it, feeling so nauseous all the time that I couldn't eat and felt like I was going to throw up, having no motivation or energy to do anything, having major panic attacks every single day...) and the only thing my teachers would reply with was "Don't be ridiculous! You always perform well and you have nothing to worry about"... Pretty much reinforcing the expectations that were giving me so much anxiety in the first place (because I don't care about the expectations I place on myself.. I don't care if I let myself down. But I get
petrified of letting others down).
What stands out to me is that the expectations I place on myself are directly a result of the expectations others place on me. I really never set expectations for myself, but my thoughts and attitude are easily influenced by others.
In addition to this there's studies eg how people who fail a task the first time put less effort/time in trying the second time compared to people who can do it the first time.
I'd have to say that I am the opposite on this one. I get very disheartened every time I "fail" a task (especially if its the first time I'm trying something), but generally it pushes me to do better. Over the years I've really worked on adopting a "growth mindset" and I now view failures/mistakes/disappointments as opportunities to learn and signs that there is still room for growth.
In primary school in grade prep/one when you are sorted into reading/maths groups based on how well you do, does that begin to build up an identity of how strong or weak you are in those areas and affect how hard you push yourself to do well throughout your school years in a vicious/virtuous cycle?
I am a strong believer that this is a major cause for every time I have experienced imposter syndrome. I was rarely ever sorted into the higher groups at a younger age, so I think I kind of grew up with the idea that no one believed I could perform well and get good grades. Then going into middle and early senior years, all of my friends would be the ones receiving academic awards or teachers would talk to them (as I was standing with them) about how AMAZING their assignment was... While I am so so so incredibly proud of all of my friends for their achievements, it just kind of reinforced the idea that none of my teachers believed in me. This has certainly effected how I view my academic performance across all my subjects. I never expect a good grade (even though I had a fairly good track record in senior years for getting good grades), I never expect academic awards or any sort of recognition, any time a teacher tells me they enjoyed my assignment or were impressed I am genuinely shocked... So yeah, having those lower expectations placed on me early on really did not set the tone for self-belief and now any time achieve anything I feel like a fraud.
(Thankfully, I did meet some fantastic teachers who always reminded me that they believed in me and helped me discover my passion for science - they are the reason I am where I am today and was able to achieve what I did in grade 12. I am truly so grateful for those teachers).
Looking back on it now it's weird to think that I went from people having such low expectations of me, to people having really high expectations...