The Pygmalion Effect

People tend to live up to what's expected of them and they tend to do better when treated as if they are capable of success. These are the lessons of The Pygmalion Effect. Pygmalion first appeared in Greek mythology as a king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea.
Much later, George Barnard Shaw wrote a play, entitiled Pygmalion, about Henry Higgins (the gentleman) and Lisa Doolittle (the cockney flower girl whom Henry turns bets he can turn into a lady).
So the Pygmalion Effect has come to mean "you get what you expect." If you expect disaster, your expectations may well be met in a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy," yet another catch phrase about the pressure of expectations.