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The Power of Expectations: Understanding the Pygmalion Effect
Have you ever been in a situation where someone's high expectations of you motivated you to perform better? Or have you ever experienced the opposite, where someone's low expectations led to you feeling discouraged and performing poorly? These situations are examples of the Pygmalion effect, a phenomenon in psychology that highlights the power of expectations.
What is the Pygmalion Effect?
The Pygmalion effect, also known as the Rosenthal effect, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when expectations of an individual or a group affect their performance. If an authority figure or a role model believes that someone can succeed in a particular area, that person will likely work hard to meet those expectations, leading to improved performance. On the other hand, if the authority figure or role model has low expectations, the person is likely to perform poorly.
The Pygmalion effect was first observed in the classroom. In a now-famous study conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968, they found that when teachers were led to believe that certain students were intellectually gifted, those students outperformed their peers, despite there being no actual difference in ability between the two groups. This study and subsequent research have shown that the Pygmalion effect applies not only in the classroom but also in various other domains, such as sports, business, and management.
How Does the Pygmalion Effect Work?
The Pygmalion effect works in a circular fashion, as follows:
- Others' expectations influence their behavior towards us.
- Their behavior towards us influences how we see ourselves.
- How we see ourselves impacts our behavior.
- Our behavior towards others influences their beliefs, reinforcing their expectations.
For example, let's say a manager has high expectations of their team's abilities. The manager's positive expectations lead to them investing more time and effort in the team, providing them with more challenging work, and giving them detailed feedback. The team members, in turn, feel valued and motivated to perform well, leading to improved performance. This, in turn, reinforces the manager's positive expectations, creating a virtuous cycle of success.
Conversely, if a manager has low expectations of their team's abilities, they are likely to invest less time and effort in the team, give them less challenging work, and provide them with less feedback. The team members, in turn, feel undervalued and discouraged, leading to poor performance. This, in turn, reinforces the manager's negative expectations, creating a vicious cycle of failure.
The Pygmalion effect is not only limited to the behavior of authority figures towards their subordinates but can also apply to peers' expectations of each other, as well as our own self-expectations.