Pygmalion effect
Encyclopedia
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people
, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion
, a Cypriot
sculptor in a narrative by Ovid
in Greek mythology
, who fell in love with a female statue he had carved out of ivory
.
The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy
, and, in this respect, people will internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology
, the effect is often cited with regard to education
and social class
.
and Lenore Jacobson
(1968/1992) report and discuss the Pygmalion effect at length. In their study, they showed that if teacher
s were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then the children did indeed show that enhancement.
The purpose of the experiment
was to support the hypothesis that reality can be influenced by the expectations of others. This influence can be beneficial as well as detrimental depending on which label an individual is assigned. The observer-expectancy effect
, which involves an experimenter's unconsciously biased expectations, is tested in real life situations. Rosenthal posited that biased expectancies can essentially affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies as a result.
In this experiment, Rosenthal predicted that, when given the information that certain students had higher IQs than others, elementary school
teachers may unconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students' success. 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.
has said that in all studies where one of the variables was the teacher, the effect of different teachers was always larger than the effect of different treatments (usually the actual subject to be studied). In essence, teachers are known to have a large impact on learning faculties but the reasons are poorly understood.
It was shown that 10 seconds of video without sound of a teacher allows students to predict the ratings the teachers will receive. Hearing the sound without vision and without content (rhythm and tone of voice only) was also enough. This was viewed as strong evidence that teachers differ in ways they cannot easily or normally control, but which are very quickly perceptible, and which, at least in students' minds, determine their value as a teacher. Marsh's (1987) work shows that student ratings of teachers do relate to learning outcomes.
sought to discover if the pygmalion effect could occur in reverse. That is, if a student's expectation of their teacher could be transmitted to the teacher and influence their performance. In the first experiment of the study, subjects were told either positive or negative information about their teacher just before the teaching session occurred. The researchers measured how the students' expectations impacted the session by considering the scores students received on the written test that completed the session, by giving the students a survey related to teacher satisfaction, and by recording the "nonverbal behavior" of the students toward the teacher. The teacher, a cohort of the researchers, was experimentally blind
to what the students thought about him/her. There were differences in all three measures based on a positive or negative expectation. Students with negative expectations "rated the lesson as being more difficult, less interesting, and less effective." Students with positive expectations scored 65.8% on the test, and those with a negative expectation scored lower, at 52.2%. In terms of nonverbal behavior, subjects leaned "forward more to good teachers than poor teachers." There was some evidence that students with a positive expectation had better eye contact with the teacher. In the second experiment of the study, Feldman and Prohaska sought to directly support the theory that "the teacher could ultimately be affected by the student's differential behavior due to expectation". In this experiment, subjects were asked to teach someone a simple lesson. The student—played by a cohort to the researchers—enacted either positive or negative nonverbal behaviors toward the subject during the teaching session. Results found that subjects who received positive nonverbal behaviors reported feeling happier and more competent than subjects whose student displayed negative non-verbal behaviors. Furthermore, outside judges who rated each subject's teaching performance found, overall, that teacher receiving positive non-verbal behaviors taught the lesson more effectively. Thus, the study found that a teacher's performance is indeed influenced by the expectations—and subsequent behavior of—their students.
expectations. This effect is seen during Jane Elliott
's blue-eyed versus brown-eyed discrimination exercise, where third graders were divided based on eye color. One group was given preference and regarded as "superior" because of their eye color, with the other group repeatedly being considered inferior in intelligence and learning ability. On the second day of the experiment, the groups were completely reversed, with those oppressed against one day being regarded as superior the next.
Elliott gave spelling tests to both groups on each day of the experiment. The students scored very low on the day they were racially "inferior" and very high on the day they were considered racially "superior."
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.
Experimenter's bias
In experimental science, experimenter's bias is subjective bias towards a result expected by the human experimenter. David Sackett, in a useful review of biases in clinical studies, states that biases can occur in any one of seven stages of research:...
, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion
Pygmalion (mythology)
Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.-In Ovid:In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a...
, a Cypriot
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
sculptor in a narrative by Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
in Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, who fell in love with a female statue he had carved out of ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
.
The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
, and, in this respect, people will internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, the effect is often cited with regard to education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
.
Rosenthal-Jacobson study
Robert RosenthalRobert Rosenthal (psychologist)
Robert Rosenthal is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. His interests include self-fulfilling prophecies, which he explored in a well-known study of the Pygmalion Effect: the effect of teachers' expectations on students.Rosenthal was born in Giessen,...
and Lenore Jacobson
Lenore Jacobson
Lenore F Jacobson was principal of an elementary school in the South San Francisco Unified School District in 1963 when she started a correspondence with Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal which led to the influential Pygmalion Effect study....
(1968/1992) report and discuss the Pygmalion effect at length. In their study, they showed that if teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then the children did indeed show that enhancement.
The purpose of the experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
was to support the hypothesis that reality can be influenced by the expectations of others. This influence can be beneficial as well as detrimental depending on which label an individual is assigned. The observer-expectancy effect
Observer-expectancy effect
The observer-expectancy effect is a form of reactivity, in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to unconsciously influence the participants of an experiment...
, which involves an experimenter's unconsciously biased expectations, is tested in real life situations. Rosenthal posited that biased expectancies can essentially affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies as a result.
In this experiment, Rosenthal predicted that, when given the information that certain students had higher IQs than others, elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
teachers may unconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students' success. The prior research that motivated this study was done in 1911 by psychologists regarding the case of Clever Hans
Clever Hans
Clever Hans was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks....
, 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.
Student rating of teachers
Of importance in educational research in general is the issue of teacher effects on student progress, and how students rate those teachers. Tim O'SheaTimothy O'Shea
Sir Timothy Michael Martin O'Shea, FRSE is the current Vice-Chancellor and Principal of The University of Edinburgh.-Biography:...
has said that in all studies where one of the variables was the teacher, the effect of different teachers was always larger than the effect of different treatments (usually the actual subject to be studied). In essence, teachers are known to have a large impact on learning faculties but the reasons are poorly understood.
It was shown that 10 seconds of video without sound of a teacher allows students to predict the ratings the teachers will receive. Hearing the sound without vision and without content (rhythm and tone of voice only) was also enough. This was viewed as strong evidence that teachers differ in ways they cannot easily or normally control, but which are very quickly perceptible, and which, at least in students' minds, determine their value as a teacher. Marsh's (1987) work shows that student ratings of teachers do relate to learning outcomes.
sought to discover if the pygmalion effect could occur in reverse. That is, if a student's expectation of their teacher could be transmitted to the teacher and influence their performance. In the first experiment of the study, subjects were told either positive or negative information about their teacher just before the teaching session occurred. The researchers measured how the students' expectations impacted the session by considering the scores students received on the written test that completed the session, by giving the students a survey related to teacher satisfaction, and by recording the "nonverbal behavior" of the students toward the teacher. The teacher, a cohort of the researchers, was experimentally blind
Double-blind
A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the people involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or subconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results....
to what the students thought about him/her. There were differences in all three measures based on a positive or negative expectation. Students with negative expectations "rated the lesson as being more difficult, less interesting, and less effective." Students with positive expectations scored 65.8% on the test, and those with a negative expectation scored lower, at 52.2%. In terms of nonverbal behavior, subjects leaned "forward more to good teachers than poor teachers." There was some evidence that students with a positive expectation had better eye contact with the teacher. In the second experiment of the study, Feldman and Prohaska sought to directly support the theory that "the teacher could ultimately be affected by the student's differential behavior due to expectation". In this experiment, subjects were asked to teach someone a simple lesson. The student—played by a cohort to the researchers—enacted either positive or negative nonverbal behaviors toward the subject during the teaching session. Results found that subjects who received positive nonverbal behaviors reported feeling happier and more competent than subjects whose student displayed negative non-verbal behaviors. Furthermore, outside judges who rated each subject's teaching performance found, overall, that teacher receiving positive non-verbal behaviors taught the lesson more effectively. Thus, the study found that a teacher's performance is indeed influenced by the expectations—and subsequent behavior of—their students.
Applications to racism
The Pygmalion effect can also result from racialRacism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
expectations. This effect is seen during Jane Elliott
Jane Elliott
Jane Elliott is an American teacher and anti-racism activist. She created the famous “blue-eyed/brown-eyed” exercise, first done with grade school children in the 1960s, and which later became the basis for her career in diversity training.-Origin of the idea:While there are variations of the...
's blue-eyed versus brown-eyed discrimination exercise, where third graders were divided based on eye color. One group was given preference and regarded as "superior" because of their eye color, with the other group repeatedly being considered inferior in intelligence and learning ability. On the second day of the experiment, the groups were completely reversed, with those oppressed against one day being regarded as superior the next.
Elliott gave spelling tests to both groups on each day of the experiment. The students scored very low on the day they were racially "inferior" and very high on the day they were considered racially "superior."
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.
Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford
In 2004, US President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
referred to "the soft bigotry of low expectations" as one of the challenges faced by disadvantaged and minority students.
See also
- Hawthorne effectHawthorne effectThe Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.The term was coined in 1950 by...
- Placebo effectPlacebo effectPlacebo effect may refer to:* Placebo effect, the tendency of any medication or treatment, even an inert or ineffective one, to exhibit results simply because the recipient believes that it will work...
- Sports psychology
- Stereotype threatStereotype threatStereotype threat is the experience of anxiety or concern in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about their social group. First described by social psychologist Claude Steele and his colleagues, stereotype threat has been shown to reduce the performance of...