Michelangelo phenomenon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it. Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (November 2007)

The Michelangelo phenomenon is a phenomenon observed by psychologists which refers to the way interdependent individuals influence and 'sculpt' each other in a manner that is as close as possible to their ideal selves. The phenomenon was named after the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) who is said to have thought of sculpting as a process of revealing and uncovering the figures hidden in stone. It was introduced in 1999 by the US psychologist Stephen Michael Drigotas and some other researchers in an article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which reported on the results of four experiments conducted to clarify the phenomenon.