The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon whereby the greater the
expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. The effect is named after the
Greek myth of Pygmalion. Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.
A corollary of the Pygmalion effect is the golem effect, in which low expectations lead
to a decrease in performance. The Pygmalion effect and the golem effect are forms of self-fulfilling
prophecy. People will take the belief they have of themselves and attribute traits of
the belief with themselves and their work. This will lead them to perform closer to these
expectations that they set for themselves. Within sociology, the effect is often cited
with regard to education and social class. Studies of the Pygmalion effect have been
difficult to conduct. Results show a positive correlation between leader expectation and
follower performance, but it is argued that the studies are done in an unnatural, manipulated
setting. Scientist argue that the perceptions a leader has of a follower cause the Pygmalion
effect. The leader's expectation are influenced by their perception of the situation or the
followers themselves. Perception and expectation may possibly be found in a similar part in
the brain.
Rosenthal–Jacobson study Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's study
showed that if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children, then the
children's performance was enhanced. This study supported the hypothesis that reality
can be positively or negatively influenced by the expectations of others, called the
observer-expectancy effect. Rosenthal argued that biased expectancies could affect reality
and create self-fulfilling prophecies. All students in a single California elementary
school were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were
not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students could be expected
to be "spurters" that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates.
The spurters' names were made known to the teachers. At the end of the study all students
were again tested with the same IQ-test used at the beginning of the study. All six grades
in both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in IQ from before the test to
after the test. However, First and Second Graders showed statistically significant gains
favoring the experimental group of "spurters." This led to the conclusion that teacher expectations,
particularly for the youngest children, can influence student achievement.Rosenthal believed
that even attitude or mood could positively affect the students when the teacher was made
aware of the "spurters." The teacher may pay closer attention to and even treat the child
differently in times of difficulty. Jane Elliott incorporated this into her study of the classroom
when racially profiling her children when creating her responses to her "inferior" or
"superior" children. Rosenthal predicted that elementary school
teachers may subconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students'
success. When finished, Rosenthal theorized that future studies could be implemented to
find teachers who would encourage their students naturally without changing their teaching
methods. The prior research that motivated this study was done in 1911 by psychologists
regarding the case of Clever Hans, a horse that gained notoriety because it was supposed
to be able to read, spell, and solve math problems by using its hoof to answer. Many
skeptics suggested that questioners and observers were unintentionally signaling Clever Hans.
For instance, whenever Clever Hans was asked a question the observers' demeanor usually
elicited a certain behavior from the subject that in turn confirmed their expectations.
For example, Clever Hans would be given a math problem to solve, and the audience would
get very tense the closer he tapped his foot to the right number, thus giving Hans the
clue he needed to tap the correct number of times.
A major limitation of this experiment was its inability to be replicated well. "Most
studies using product measures found no expectancy advantage for the experimental group, but
most studies using process measures did show teachers to be treating the experimental group
more favorably or appropriately than they were treating the control group...because
teachers did not adopt the expectations that the experimenters were attempting to induce,
and/or because the teachers were aware of the nature of the experiment."
Students' views of teachers Teachers are also affected by the children
in the classroom. Teachers reflect what is projected onto them by their students. An
experiment done by Jenkins and Deno submitted teachers to a classroom of children who had
either been told to be attentive, or unattentive, to the teachers' lecture. They found that
teachers who were in the attentive condition would rate their teaching skills as higher.
Similar findings by Herrell stated that when a teacher was preconditioned to classrooms
as warm or cold, the teacher would start to gravitate towards their precondition. To further
this concept, Klein did the same kind of study involving teachers still unaware of any precondition
to the classroom but the class was full of confederates who were instructed to act differently
during periods over the course of the lecture. Though "Klein reported that there was little
difference between students behaviors in the natural and the positive conditions." In a
more observational study designed to remove the likes of the Hawthorne effect, Oppenlander
studied the top and bottom 20% of students in the sixth grade from a school that tracks
and organizes its students under such criteria. Applications to racism
According to the once often-cited, but controversial, non-scientific study of Jane Elliott, the
Pygmalion effect can play a role in racial expectations and behavior. Elliott was an
American teacher and an anti-racism activist who devised an exercise to determine the effects
of expectations and discrimination upon children. She used differences in eye color to distinguish
between perceptions and expectations of "inferior" and "superior". In this exercise, one group
was given preference and regarded as "superior" in intelligence and learning ability because
of their eye color, while the other group was intentionally associated with inferiority.
On the second day of the experiment, the groups were completely reversed, with those previously
considered inferior one day being regarded as superior the next. She had taken on students
deemed as inferior due to their lack of ability to read well and put them through her experiment.
Almost half of the class went on after high school to higher schooling; this was considered
impressive for their status when she first did the study. The children of the study felt
more in control when it came to discrimination. They said the agony was worth the perspective
they had on life. One even stated that when he sees discrimination he wishes he could
tell the person of his experience and would urge the person to look at their lives through
their eyes. They realized that what was considered normal or accepted was not always the right
thing. Elliott found that 4 students in particular
were distinctly affected by this experiment. These students had advanced years past their
age level when tested by the Stanford Achievement Test. Elliot asked one why this was and the
student responded with "I found out I was as good as you said I was. You told me I could
do anything, and I can I'm smart!" Jane Elliott has done the same non-scientific
experiment with adults in workshops. The results are similar to those of the children in her
classroom. Chen and Bargh study
Chen and Bargh did an automatic behavioral confirmation study in 1997. Participants were
subliminally exposed to African American or Caucasian faces. They were then instructed
to play a game of "Catch Phrase" with another participant who was not subliminally exposed
to any faces. Both the primed and non-primed participants acted more hostile when the primed
participants were subliminally primed with black rather than white faces. Because the
participant was primed with a stereotypical hostile face, they perceived the other participant
as hostile and treated them as such. This relates in reverse to the Pygmalion effect.
Because the stereotype allowed for a negative perception, one participant had a negative
expectation of the other. Pygmalion in the workplace
Leader expectations of the employee may alter leader behavior. This behavior that is expressed
toward an employee can affect the behaviors of the employee in favor of the leader's expectations.
The more an employee is engaged in learning activities, the higher the expectation is
from the leader. In turn, the employee participates in more learning behavior. Leaders will show
more leader behaviors such as leader-member exchange, setting specific goals, and allowing
for more learning opportunities for employees, and giving employees feedback. These factors
were brought about by Rosenthal's model of the Pygmalion effect.
Quotations James Rhem, executive editor for the online
National Teaching and Learning Forum, commented:
"When teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when
teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in
fact be discouraged in a variety of ways." "How we believe the world is and what we honestly
think it can become have powerful effects on how things will turn out."
"When people say you're dumb, you feel dumb, you act dumb" "But when you're on top and
you're told you can do no wrong, you can't. You have the classroom in the palm of your
hand, and you go" A student recounting his experiences in Jane Elliott's classroom.
"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right." – Henry
Ford In 2004, US President George W. Bush referred
to "the soft bigotry of low expectations" as one of the challenges faced by disadvantaged
and minority students. “Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy;
it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.” Howard Zinn
"I think I can! I think I can!" The Little Blue Engine
See also Hawthorne effect
Placebo effect Sports psychology
Stereotype threat References
Further reading Feldman, Robert S.; Prohaska, Thomas. "The
student as Pygmalion: Effect of student expectation on the teacher". Journal of Educational Psychology
71: 485–493. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.71.4.485. Jussim, L.; Harber, K. D.. "Teacher Expectations
and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Knowns and Unknowns, Resolved and Unresolved Controversies".
Personality and Social Psychology Review 9: 131–155. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0902_3.
External links Pygmalion effect in banks, at school, and
in the army Pygmalion Effect Video