surely your mentors don’t hold high expectations in areas where your potential is low? There has to be latent talent for expectations to make a real difference. Admittedly almost everyone has the talent to not litter, demand for ethical behavior etc. So for some types of activities, expectations will matter. For others (sports, arts, science) talent assuredly matters and there is a wide distribution across individuals and groups.

When performance of a particular entity does not meet one’s expectations, disconfirmation occurs. Individuals look either within themselves or in the environment to locate the reasons for this disconfirmation. When they do figure out the cause of the lower performance and hence the disconfirmation, they learn how to deal with it. Absent the role of institutions or their effectiveness, the ability of an individual to seek redress in such scenarios is severely hampered. It is not just about raising expectations, but also developing a process through which individuals can seek redress. It is not that individuals have lower expectation in India, it is that they don’t know or do not seek redress.

Because we expect politicians to be corrupt, we do not reform the systems that may faciliate this as assidiously as we would otherwise. We are, consequently, more indifferent to morally offensive political scandals.

Institutions are infamous for taking a long time to reform. If only one person revises his expectation that “political corruption is bad and I’m going to do something about it”, that’s not enough. EVERYONE has to be on board for changes to happen - this is where marketing comes in.

A lesson for economists from the management consultancy sphere: “it’s 80% about delivery, 20% about content”.

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/CAE/06-06.pdf

http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/seminars/oxoby.pdf
These are a bit technical for me. There is also the work of Hoff and Pandey:
http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/bpde2004/hoff.pdf
I wonder whether thiese are related to your ideas. Regards,
Swarup

1. I don’t know what information imperfection has to do with expectations. Its like saying this “The real estate market in Bombay is unorganised. Hence, there is no readily-available data on property price trends.”

2. I don’t know what game theory has to do with expectations. Its like saying this “I went searching for a house in Dharavi. I expect prices to be low out there”.

3. I don’t know what expectations have to with anecdotal evidence. Its like saying this “I met with a few people in Dharavi. They were short, black, dirty. They were like tribal pygimes”.

4. I don’t know what anecdotal evidence has to do with what people think of me. Its like saying this “Everyone hates tribal pygmies. To belong, even I must hate tribal pygmies”.

5. I don’t know what people’s expectations of me has to do with the company I keep. Its like saying this “I hate tribal pygmies. And so do all my friends”.

6. Finally, I don’t know what the company I keep has to do with causing a revolution. Its like saying this “Well, the real estate market in Bombay can change a tribal pygmy’s life”.

My game theory might be a little rusty but lose lose outcomes are also plausible in scenarios even when players “raise expectations … far above the prevalent average” as a strategy. Am I right? It is possible that a simultaneous move (or moves) has the unknown effect of dominating the final outcome?

In India’s case a noble strategy of removing illnesses and death had the unintended effect of a massive population boom that wreaked havoc on the economy. Still strategies of education and food production paid out as we use the outcomes of these to leverage the economy back into shape with IT. As the game continues supposed setbacks become strengths as our lower costs and population leverages the BPO industry with manufacturing soon to follow.

In game theory at least, the expectations are not always what we expect them to be. In a finite game length with a time frame of the last two decades “we lost” but in an infinite play (with an unknown end date) it looks like we have the strategies and outcomes to win.

- Communication medium - Internet, Television, Radio allow individuals to think outside their circle of reference and impacts their aspirations and expectations

- Role models and pioneers - People who succeed in breaking stereotypes are a huge influence on their communities. Whether it’s Jesse Owens winning Gold medals in Hitler’s era or Tiger Woods defying Jack Nicklaus’ argument or Narayan Murthy turning from a middle class and honest background to a multimillionaire…similar achievers have reversed negative stereotypes.

I also believe community size matters. If there were a billion jewish people as opposed to only 10 million or so in this world, their track record and hence expectations would be different.