During my undergraduate psychology degree, I learned about a famous study from the 1960s that has stayed with me ever since.
Researchers administered a fake IQ test to elementary school students. Afterwards, they gave teachers a list of children who had supposedly scored exceptionally well on the fake test and predicted that these students would make remarkable academic progress over the coming year.
In reality, the students identified as “intellectual bloomers” had not actually scored any higher than anyone else. Researchers had chosen them completely at random.
Yet by the end of the school year, these students had made significantly greater academic gains than their peers.
Researchers concluded that teachers’ expectations, due to the “intellectual bloomer” label assigned to some students, had subtly changed the way they interacted with these students. Those higher expectations became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Interestingly, research has found the opposite to be true as well: negative labels and expectations can also undermine performance.
The pejorative labels that other people place on us can shape how we show up. But perhaps even more powerful are the negative labels we place on ourselves.
This thinking error is known as labelling.
These labels rarely appear out of nowhere. They are usually formed through repeated experiences, the messages we receive from others, and the environments we grow up in.
Common self-labelling beliefs are:
“I am stupid.”
“I am lazy.”
“I am a bad mother.”
“I am a bad Muslim.”
Although these beliefs are always present beneath the surface, they usually enter our conscious awareness only when activated during relevant situations. They may persist long after the situation has ended or emerge beforehand in anticipation of it, evoking feelings of anxiety, helplessness, defeat, depression, and frustration. Ironically, these emotions can make us behave in ways that seem to confirm the very label we are trying so hard to disprove. These labels can even affect our relationship with Allah ﷻ. They may distract us during or from salah, cause us to neglect adhkar, du’a and reading the Qur’an, or leave us feeling unworthy of Allah ﷻ’s mercy.
I experienced this for decades.
For many years, I carried the belief, “I am stupid.”
Whenever I worked on a group project during graduate school, that thought would immediately appear.
Before the discussion had even begun, I was already convinced I would embarrass myself.
Afterwards, I would think about the interaction for days, especially ‘evidence’ that I was indeed “stupid.”
Because I believed this label so strongly, I became anxious during conversations. I froze, stumbled over my words, and struggled to express my thoughts clearly.
Those anxiety symptoms then seemed to “prove” that I really was stupid, reinforcing the belief even further.
It became a vicious cycle.
Perhaps you’ve also been labelling yourself and feel stuck. So how do we begin breaking free from these negative labels, insha’Allah?
While no single technique works for everyone, one method that I have found particularly helpful is called “Let’s Define Terms.”
Taking my old self as an example, with this method, I would start by answering the questions:
What exactly do you mean by this label?
Imagine you were writing your own dictionary. If someone looked up the word “stupid,” what definition would they find?
Let’s say my definition was:
“Someone who repeatedly makes mistakes and cannot understand anything.”
I would then ask myself:
Does a “stupid” person “repeatedly make mistakes and fail to understand anything” sometimes or all the time?
If my answer is sometimes, then the label loses its meaning; every human being makes repeated mistakes or struggles to understand certain things at least some of the time.
If my answer is all the time, the label would still fall apart because no one consistently misunderstands everything or always makes mistakes.
Negative labels we impose on ourselves are often similarly inaccurate and unhelpful.
Instead of reducing ourselves to labels, we can begin by identifying a couple of specific behaviours we would like to change, and thoughtfully problem-solve how to improve them insha’Allah.
What label would you like to challenge and get rid of today, insha’Allah?
If what I have said is correct, it is from Allah ﷻ; and if it is wrong, then it is from myself and Shayṭān.
As Salaam Aleykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatouh.