The Pygmalion effect

As part of my job, I spend a lot of time talking to people. It’s something I love, and I always end up learning something new in every conversation. However, I’ve been surprised by how many people don’t know about what is, to me, one of the most important learnings in psychology: the Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect is a powerful weapon to help others succeed.

Both in business and in our personal life, we can all nudge others towards more successful outcomes.

First research on the topic started at the beginning of the 20th century, but already in 17th century Blaise Pascal said “treat human beings as they are, and they will remain the same. Treat them as what they can become, and they will become what they can become”. However, it was the work of Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (in 1965) examining the influence of teachers’ expectations on students’ performance that was key to define the Pygmalion effect as we know it today.

In their study, elementary school teachers were told that some students were ‘the smarter of the class’, based on higher IQ test results. However, those students were picked randomly (i.e. they were not the ones with higher IQ). Interestingly enough, they ended up getting the larger IQ improvement when they were re-tested at the end of the study. What happened is what Rosenthal and Jacobson called the Pygmalion effect, named after a mythical Greek sculptor that carved a statue of a woman and felt in love with it (another hopeless romantic!).

‘So what’s the Pygmalion effect all about?’

Teachers’ higher expectations on the ‘smarter’ students led to the teachers unconsciously influencing those students to feel more capable of achieving better results. Indeed, teachers’ increased level of attention and encouragement towards those students, challenges offered, and body language, contributed to the students performing above average.

This guided to a key conclusion: “when we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur”.

Rosenthal suggested four key factors to explain how expectations influence results:

1. Climate (such as positive behaviour and environment, body language, meetings set-up)
2. Input (including more attention, energy devoted, challenges given)
3. Output (like calling on the ‘smarter’ students for answers more often, giving an employee more responsibilities and ownership, thinking of a person as the go-to for a particular subject, early promotion)
4. Feedback (for example giving on-going detailed feedback, coaching sessions, informal mentors)

The Pygmalion effect is a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, a concept attributed to Robert Merton who said that ‘the self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation, evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error”.

I don’t fully agree with the somehow negative connotation of this definition when applied to the Pygmalion effect, but I like the idea that feedback loops reinforced over time have a tremendous impact in determining what we believe to be ‘true’.

‘And why is the Pygmalion effect so fascinating?’

Because we can all nudge others towards more successful outcomes. Any leader (manager, mentor, or board member, for instance) should hold high and positive expectations about his or her team members. This will likely lead to better results and overall increased performance.

But it’s not as easy as it might seem:

• You can’t fake it. You need to genuinely believe in someone’s abilities in order to make this theory really work. It’s not about pretending you believe on somebody’s capabilities, but actually thinking that person can excel or simply do better. Sometimes, we tend to nudge towards success people who are more similar to us as it is easier to recognise faster the strengths we are used to. On the flip side, we often admire people who excel in abilities we are not particularly good at. For the rest of the people, we need to do a more conscious effort to acknowledge their strengths. It is worthy doing that exercise and realise we can end up admiring so many individuals for very different reasons. Understanding how everyone’s strengths can translate into enhanced performance is key to positively influence others through our beliefs.
• Manage expectations to avoid frustrations. Expectations should be as high as realistic. Expecting more than you actually should would probably lead to disappointment and frustration (both for the leader and the ‘subordinate’), and even worsen results.
• Don’t set the bar too high. Overly high expectations, even if realistic, can lead to diminishing returns. As Shane Parrish points out, ‘when someone sets the bar too high, we can get discouraged and not even bother trying’. McClelland’s and Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation shows that the Pygmalion effect is less powerful when expected chances of success are low.

And, sometimes, I wonder… how much our own beliefs about ourselves influence others’ beliefs about us, and how much can we control that stream of cause-consequence?

That said, the power of the Pygmalion effect is just fascinating. Parents can help their children learn more and faster, leaders can contribute to increased teams’ performance, mentors can empower mentees. Everyone can push each other to better results. You only need to be aware of what’s the best every person has to offer.

Think about it: we can all nudge others towards success. It’s a superpower!