Psychologist Robert Rosenthal attributes the Pygmalion Effect (where we perform according to what is expected of us rather than our aptitudes) to four main environmental influences.
- Climate – Rosenthal believes that people who have been led to expect good things from people they are about to encounter (students, children, clients etc) – create a warmer social-emotional, mood – a climate so to speak. This climate then has an influence on how everybody acts.
- Feedback – Rosenthal maintains that there is more feedback given in a positive-expectation environment and this encourages learning.
- Input – when teachers (in particular) have positive expectation they tend to teach both more material and also more difficult material and in this way their input varies.
- Output – when teacher expectations are good, students are given more opportunity to respond and to question the material thus increasing their output.
There is nothing magical or definitive about the choice of these four, and in fact, none of them is independent of the others…The most dramatic case in point is W. Victor Beez’s work with 60 preschoolers and 60 teachers in a Headstart program ( an educational program for low-income preschoolers). Beez told half of the teachers that they could expect poor performance from their supposedly “below-average” children; the rest expected exceptional performance from their “bright” children. Observers, who had not been told what the teacher’s expectations were, noted the exchanges between teacher and child. The teachers worked much harder when they believed they had a bright child. In a unit on word learning, for example, 87 percent of the teachers of “bright” children taught eight or more words; but only 13 percent of the teachers of the “dull” children tried to teach them that many. Not surprisingly, 77 percent of the “bright” children learned five or more words, but only 13 percent of the “dull” children learned that many.
Such results tell us that a teacher’s expectations about a student’s performance are not simply transmitted in subtle voice nuances and a casual facial expression. The expectations may be translated into explicit, overt alterations in teaching style and substance. (1)
If the expectations of others – individually and collectively – have such a profound and shaping effect on all of us, then what are the implications for our societies if our social institutions, laws and even our informal social interactions are influenced by the belief that human nature is intrinsically inclined towards selfishness and aggression?
We have come to accept that human nature is intrinsically flawed as if it were a natural fact – a sad reality – like illness or natural disaster – that must be faced if we are to be safe. But what if we’re wrong? What if the obvious flaws demonstrated by human beings are the result of self-fulfilling prophecies rather than a feature of reality?
Robert Rosenthal, The Pygmalion Effect Lives, pp4-5 bvsd.org/schools/…/teachers/egrace/…/Pygmalion%20Effect%20article.doc
Related articles
- Lessons from school: The Pygmalion effect revisited. (agastyaelango.com)
- Building Belief (geoffreywebb.wordpress.com)
