Self Fulfilling Prophecies - The Pygmalion Effect
The Pygmalion Effect, consolidated by psychologist Robert Rosenthal in 1968, demonstrates how the expectations placed upon individuals can significantly influence their performances. In a grandbreaking experiment at an elementary school, he highlights the powerful role of self-fulfilling prophecies. This article examines how our beliefs about ourselves and others can shape outcomes in various domains of life as well as offer a solution to the negative effects of Pygmalion effect.
Pygmalion in the Classroom
In 1968, the psychologist Robert Rosenthal contacted an elementary school, informing the teachers there that he had developed a test able to effectively predict students' future performances and thus identify bloomers' flourishing in advance.
After administering the test to all students, Rosenthal provided the teachers with a list of the most promising students. The secret was that the test was just normal test, and the children’s name were randomly selected. One year later, Rosenthal paid a second visit to the elementary school to find out that those students' whose name were handed to the teachers had in fact seen an increase in their overall performances.
We know that the students were randomly selected. So what happened? According to Rosenthal, the teachers' awareness of the supposed "talent" of that small group of students influenced their behavior towards them. Most likely, the teaching staff began to keep an eye on these students, focusing more on them, and like any self-respecting vicious (or virtuous, depending on the point of view) circle, these students showed the long-term effects of the special treatment they received. In other words, the teachers unknowingly triggered a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Rosenthal called this phenomenon the "Pygmalion Effect", after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he created. The statue was then turned into a woman by the goddess Aphrodites, following Pygmalion’s request.
Pygmalion effect explained
Rosenthal's experiment teaches us an important lesson: our beliefs about ourselves can shape our reality. Our brain doesn't like to be proved wrong nor change ideas. Each and every variation in our thoughts corresponds to a change in the position of our neurones that would rather stay the way where they are. What could happen is that instead of accepting we might be wrong about something, we inadvertedly create a situation that confirms our initial beliefs. The more ingrained is the belief, the more difficult it will be to get rid of this mechanism.
Let's take an example. Irene is a teacher who is meeting her new class today. Despite not having yet met the children, she has made acquaintance with their parents at a pre-school event. She met Luke's parents and got a bad impression of them due to their bad manners and low interest in their son's education. Irene may subconsciously start to assume that Luke's parents influence on him is unavoidable and that he must not be a very polite child, and must also not be a very good student. Therefore, when she meets Luke, she starts to treat him differently compared to other children. She does not really encourage him, calls him out whenever he is joking with his classmates, and responds harshly when he commits a mistake. At the same time, Luke is lacking encouragement, starts losing self-esteem as a result, and begins to believe that he doesn't possess a predisposition for studying. The only thing he is good at is making jokes. Luke focuses on that instead of his grades. For this reason, he starts failing, meeting not only his own expectations, but also his teacher's.
Until not too long ago, scientific subjects at universities were dominated by males, whereas humanistic subjects were dominated by women. Initially it was believed that this was caused by inherent differences between males and females who preferred, and also performed better, in different subjects. However, the pygmalion effect can make us reflect on whether what is actually going on is that the narrative surrounding men and women’s different talents could be the theme responsible for this division.
The Pygmalion Effect in our Relationship with Ourselves and Others
The pygmalion effect is relevant to both our relationship with others and ourselves.
We could inadvertedly sabotage our relationships with others by letting our assumptions about them impact how we perceive them as well as our dispositions towards them. For example, if you have an anxious attachment style, you will likely experience fear of abandonment, which will lead you to be overly clingy with your significant other. This behaviour, if protracted, may result in them rejecting you, confirming your beliefs. Speaking of attachment styles, you can check my article or its YouTube video-format counterpart to find out more about the topic.
That is true for personal, work, romantic, and all kind of relationships. If you are a manager who holds negative assumptions about your employees, and behave in a way that makes your belief evident to everyone, they might probably feel the pressure, stress, and other factors which will most likely impact their work, and your work as their manager.
But the pygmalion effect influences our relationship with ourselves too. Limiting beliefs about our capabilities, for instance, more often than not lead us to avoid specific situations, confirming our beliefs. The side effect of this phenomenon is stagnation, which will prevent us from growing and maturing. As an example, I will illustrate a personal anecdote. As a child, my teachers often told me that I was not very good in sciences, but I had great writing skills. Useless to say, this belief stuck with me for much of my subsequent life. For a certain time, I either avoided studying sciences or got frustrated studying it. As a result, I got ba grades, that reinforced my beliefs. Knowing about the pygmalion effect helped me understand the mechanism behind this whole situation. At university level, I got to deepen my knowledge in the fields of neuroscience and biology. Contrarily to my previous experience, my awareness allowed me to not only understand the material but also achieve high grades in those types of subject both me and my teachers believed I wasn't "made for".
What should we do?
Having acquired familiarity with what the pygmalion effect is, its importance and potential impact on our relationships with others as well as with ourselves, we know wonder whether we can avoid this unconscious mechanism. Is it possible to hold positive beliefs about everybody and thus only allow, as much as we can, positive self-fulfilling prophecies?
According to Rosenthal himself, not really. Everyone is irremediably bad at something whereas others excels at it and vice versa. But rather than caging ourselves and others within the boudaries of our self-fulfilling beliefs, we should treat everyone, including ourselves, as potential learners. Hard work leads to the development of any skill, no matter what others' ceilings may look like. Besides, how can we really know who is good at something if we don't give them a chance?
Scientists know all too well about the brain's plasticity, namely the brain’s ability to change in response to experience. According to recent research brain plasticity lasts for our entire life, and that is excellent news. In fact, this means that at any point in life we can become good at virtually anything we put our mind into.
The pygmalion effect could also put "talent" in a different light. "Talented people" might just be people who were praised for certain skills at a young age, and that were then prompted to put all the effort they possibly could into that thing until they mastered it.
Conclusion
The Pygmalion Effect highlights how beliefs and behaviors of ourselves and others can create self-fulfilling prophecies that shape our reality. This phenomenon extends beyond the classroom, affecting personal relationships, professional environments, and our self-identity. While it may be challenging to eliminate biases, treating every individual as a learner could fostering growth mindset and mitigate the limiting effects of negative expectations. Embracing the brain's plasticity and the possibility for development, we can strive to unlock the latent potential within ourselves and those around us.
References
https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias...
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/article...
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the...
https://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsliteracy...
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-...