The Pygmalion Effect/The Rosenthal Experiment
We usually live up to the expectations set upon us, for better, or for worse.
For everyone working in a leadership, mentorship, or coaching capacity, you need to pay attention. The success of your team, mentees, and students depends on this.
Your expectations on the people you work with will heavily influence the success and failure in whatever pursuit they endeavour in.
So our third instalment in the mini-series on laws and theories that apply to everyone in everyday life, we’d like to share with you “The Pygmalion/Rosenthal Effect” next.
The Pygmalion Effect
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the Pygmalion Effect as,“an improvement in a person’s performance when someone expects them to perform well or achieve more.”
Essentially the effect explains the rise and fall of the target person’s performance, depending on the expectations we place on them.
As you can see, it is very much a circle of expectations, actions of the target person that reinforces our preconceived notions, and further reinforcement of our expectations, and so on.
Robert Rosenthal, PhD is a well-known Psychologist, who is well remembered for his research and observations on this effect. He conducted this study with Lenore Jacobson in 1963 at an elementary school in San Francisco, California.
In this experiment, some teachers were told that they are educating above-average students, and other teachers were told they are teaching below-average students.
Both classes had taken an IQ test beforehand and were determined to have a similar intelligence level with each other.
Since the teachers in the “above average” class had higher expectations for their students, they performed to said expectations. You can infer that the “below average” students did not do as well.
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson concluded that the teacher’s preconceptions of their student’s ability to achieve influenced the student’s actual performance. (Rosenthal Experiment)
In effect, this is the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
You can read the dissertation here.
How This Applies to Your Life
For anyone who follows you to be successful, you need to set high expectations.
Moreover, you must fundamentally believe that they can do it.
Researching this concept, it thoroughly explains why my managers set such high sales goals, targets, and other expectations for my team.
Regardless of whether we hit them or not, they maintained these high standards because the hope is always that we can achieve more than what we believe.
When we hit the goals, it reinforced both my manager and our belief that we can do it.
It really is a self-fulfilling prophecy, where if everyone believes they can achieve the targets set, they will undoubtedly hit them.
So if you find yourself working in a leadership capacity, believe in your people and set the expectations appropriately high.
A Word of Caution
It is counterproductive to set unrealistic expectations.
You will not believe in the expectations set, and your people will certainly not believe in it either.
So, in addition to my anecdotal point regarding my manager setting high sales goals, there were times when the targets set where not grounded in reality.
The result of this was that we simply set our own goals below the goals set by the manager and disregarded their complaints at our lack of success as irrelevant.
Naturally, this is a situation every manager would like to avoid at all costs. So when you set your expectations for your people, make sure it is justifiable and grounded in practicality.
In Conclusion
Pay attention to your preconceptions on the ability of your team, students and staff.
As a leader, you are at a significant position to influence the success of your group. If you do not believe you term can achieve, they may very well make this prophecy come to fruition.
On our next instalment, we will talk to you about The Spotlight Effect.
What are your passions or hobbies? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Here at The Top Essentials, we are all about helping you to live your best life. We hope the advice here helps you do just that. Keep reading our blogs for more ways to succeed in life.
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